


Christmas Date

by bewildered



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewildered/pseuds/bewildered
Summary: Christmas Eve in Cleveland, 2004.Holiday request from Dark. Squeaking it in for the end of the Christmas Season. (It's only the 9th day of Christmas! That counts!)





	1. First Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkVoid116](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkVoid116/gifts).



> Thanks to Sigyn for betareading & brainstorming. This was supposed to be a oneshot, but it has grown a bit and needs to be at least 2, possibly 3 chapters, depending on how chatty Spuffy decide to be in the rest of the story. Enjoy!

Buffy paused at the tinsel-festooned hostess’s station, scanning the restaurant for familiar faces, her hand sweaty on the handle of her carry-on bag. For a moment she couldn’t find him, and the thought that he wasn’t there -- had he changed his mind? Or gotten injured? Had she come to the wrong place? -- made her stomach feel weird, like someone had taken an apple corer and dug a hole straight through her stomach, all funky and deja-vu-ey.

Last time she’d seen him she’d had a literal hole in her stomach, pierced through-and-through by a sword. It was hard to be sure, what with the passage of months and the fact she wasn’t on fire this time, but she thought this might actually feel worse.

Then he moved, and his hair caught the light, and she saw him.

Spike hadn’t realized she was there yet, was speaking to the waitress, and she drank in the sight, the slight smile, the light and shadows of his face, all so familiar but at the same time… had she ever seen him quite like that? Relaxed and happy? ...Would he stay that way around her?

Oh god, she couldn’t do this.

But then he tensed, and it was too late to run; he looked up and met her eyes, and it was like a slideshow went off in her brain, all the times he’d looked into her eyes, from the first time they’d met in a smelly alley all the way through that final moment, the moment she’d lost him, and it didn’t matter that she’d known he’d been alive for months now, that they’d talked on the phone and sent packages and even used that fancy new video-messaging system a time or two. This was the moment it became real to her, the fact of his survival. All too real, and her feet wouldn’t move.

But then Spike’s table companion raised an arm in acknowledgment.

“B! It’s about time!”

He glanced away then, and the moment was over, and oh, there was that hole in her stomach again. She ignored it, nodding vaguely at the hostess as she wheeled her suitcase through the tables.

“How was your flight?” That was Michael, Head Logistics Officer of the Cleveland Slayers Division. Also Faith’s boyfriend of several months, which had been a bit unexpected but then, in hindsight, totally inevitable. He was mild-mannered and soft-spoken, but solid as steel underneath, and after almost a year of Faith’s unstoppable-force meeting his immovable-object resolve, they’d apparently tumbled into bed for an entire weekend.

Faith had later found out that Michael had submitted conflict-of-interest paperwork to HR a good month prior. Just in case.

She’d laughed about it over the phone with Buffy, though she’d also been trepidatious. “He’s so goddamned organized. And straight. I mean, not straight-straight, he said he’s bi, but straight-and-narrow, straitlaced, straight-talker….” She’d laughed again, incredulous. “And I’m so bent.”

“Maybe that’s what you need. Someone solid. Like an anchor.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s what it’s like. He’s an anchor.” Faith had sighed luxuriously. “Chains and all. Turns out he’s bent in a few ways. Just the right ones.”

“TMI, Faith,” Buffy had laughed. “You know I have to read his daily reports. I do not need those images to go along with the spreadsheets.”

“Still,” Faith had murmured, voice serious. “I can’t help feeling, I don’t know, like I don’t deserve this. I mean, yeah, I served my time, or some of it at least, and I’ve made amends where I could -- you, Xander, even tracked down that gigantic ex of yours -- and I’ve been working my ass off in the office and the field, making the night safe for the good citizens of Cleveland, but I don’t feel like it’s enough. It doesn’t make up for what I’ve done.”

“It’s not about making up for it,” Buffy had said stoutly. “It’s about trying, and doing, and moving forward. You deserve to be loved, Faith. You deserve someone who can… who can look at your ugly bits and see past them to the good you’re capable of.” She’d suppressed a stab of regret at the thought, remembering a fervent speech in an abandoned house. “Someone who knows you inside and out and still thinks you’re amazing.”

“I think he does. I think he really does.” Faith had paused before continuing, quiet. “I think I do, too.”

“Ooh, so we’re picking out curtains?” Buffy had teased.

“Oh, hell, no! But, you know. He bought me a toothbrush.” She’d laughed again. “I was thinking it was time to try something different. Keep him around for a bit. Treat him fine.”

That had been in April, when Buffy had been in Italy pretending to date the Immortal, and from the easy way Faith was holding Michael’s hand across the table now, they still seemed to be going strong, eight months later, which was really awesome, and okay, it was time for Buffy to stop distracting herself with thoughts of Faith and Michael and face the music. She looked square into his blue, blue eyes.

“Hi, Spike.”

“Hello, Buffy.”

It belatedly occurred to her that she hadn’t replied to Michael. “My flight was good. No in-flight demon attacks.” She seated herself across from Spike, eyes still on his, suddenly breathless.

“Well, that’s a relief. Cross-Atlantic demon activity requires ridiculous amounts of paperwork.”

“Oh, you love it,” Faith teased. “All that cross-correlation and jurisdiction determination. Anyhow, B, did you want a drink? They make a killer margarita here.”

“A margarita sounds great. Make it El Gigante, those coach class seats are brutal. Have you already ordered?”

“Just appetizers. Deep-fried stuff. Hope your arteries are prepared.”

“What, no spicy Buffalo wings?” Buffy tried a grin on for size.

“Not spicy enough here,” Spike said with a grin of his own. “You know I like them strong enough to kick my teeth in.”

And so there they were, grinning, which made Buffy feel kind of foolish, but she couldn’t stop her face. _So far so good,_ she reassured herself. _Now, try not to stick your foot in your mouth for the rest of it._

Michael cleared his throat. “Once you’ve decided on your meal, perhaps we could get the reports out of the way?”

“Yeah.” Buffy shook herself a little. “Yeah, that is why I’m here, isn’t it.”

Faith snorted and Spike rolled his eyes and Michael cast her a sly sidelong look saying clear as day that he wasn’t buying it either. Which, okay, so it was an excuse, and a paper-thin one at that. It wasn’t even her excuse; Giles had been the one to book the flight, presenting her with the ticket and an exhortation to bring back a thorough report on the state of affairs in Cleveland.

Buffy had stared at the ticket, uncomprehending. “Faith just called in a report yesterday.”

“Indeed she did,” Giles had said, unperturbed. “But it’s always good to have observations external to the organization. Perhaps you’ll have a suggestion or two to make. Your flight leaves in a week.”

“On Christmas Eve?”

Giles had lifted his eyebrows. “There was a special rate. In any case, I believe this visit is long overdue.”

The look in his eyes had made Buffy tear up. “Yeah. Yeah, it really is.” She’d been saving up, but international airfare was expensive.

“Very good.” He’d turned back to his paperwork then. “Do be sure to bring back your receipts. And Buffy?” She’d stopped in the doorway. “Please give Spike my regards.”

It had been an olive branch, and Buffy hadn’t been about to turn it down.

And she was distracting herself again, thinking about Giles, because she was terrified. Utterly, mind-shakingly terrified. And Spike deserved better.

So she set her hand in the middle of the table -- tentatively, an invitation. “It’s really good to see you, Spike.”

“Likewise, Slayer.” He set his hand on top of hers, light as a feather. “You’re looking well.”

“And you’re still a terrible liar. I’ve been travelling for twelve hours in coach, not counting the three hour layover in Toronto. If the bags under my eyes were any bigger I’d’ve had to pay the airline an extra fifty bucks.” She gently stroked his thumb with her own, feeling the tingle down to her toes.

He looked down at their hands. “Seen you worse,” he shrugged.

The waitress came by then with drinks for the Cleveland crew; Buffy requested her extra-large margarita, then hastily checked her menu while the others placed orders. The heavy menu required both hands, and she spent a moment after turning the menu over to the waitress fidgeting before she set her jaw and put her hand in the middle of the table again. She‘d flown across an ocean to get to this meeting, she wasn’t going to second-guess herself out of the good stuff.

There was a slight hesitation before Spike took her hand again, cautiously. So she wasn’t the only one who was terrified. His fingers were cooler than she remembered -- but then, it was Ohio, in December. She hadn’t really been paying attention when she left the airport or arrived at the restaurant, but she thought Cleveland was a place where it snowed? Sometimes?

She curled her hand around his cold fingertips to warm them.

“So listen up, B,” Faith said easily, breaking the tension. “You are not going to believe what Vi has been up to.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Is this part of your report, or just gossip?”

Faith grinned. “A little of both.”

The conversation turned to slaying business, which was a relief to Buffy. This was why she’d asked Faith to come tonight, so she and Spike wouldn’t be stuck at a table staring silently at each other as they both tried to come up with ways to break the ice. Or worse, saying just the wrong things and setting each other off. There were still far too many raw bits between them that needed healing.

And it was nice just to sit here with his hand in hers.

*

Faith was one of the few people who knew just how tender some of Buffy’s old wounds still were. After Sunnydale, they’d developed an unexpected closeness as they worked together to build a new Watcher’s Council from the rubble of the old. Saddled with new responsibilities, uniquely situated as the only slayers with years of experience, and free from the urgency and pressure of their clash with the First, they’d struck up an uneasy truce that had slowly blossomed into actual friendship.

Buffy had told Faith about Spike just before the younger woman had left to monitor the Cleveland Hellmouth. It wasn’t the first time Buffy had broached the subject -- Willow and Xander had both been sympathetic ears for her in those early months after Sunnydale’s destruction -- but she had held back some of the uglier truths, about him and about herself, unwilling to tarnish his undeniable heroism and uncertain how her friends might judge her for her own misdeeds. Faith, with her own history of sin and remorse, had turned out to be the perfect unjudgey confidante, with a wry perspective that had left Buffy feeling, if not cleansed, at least understood. In return, Faith had shared some of own traumas, things Buffy had only guessed at before, and by the time Faith had gotten on the plane at Heathrow with her freshly-assembled team, they had forged a solid bond of camaraderie that had persisted despite the distance. Faith had gotten into the habit of calling Buffy after her Sunday-night patrol, usually catching her over morning tea due to the five-hour difference.

When Faith had called her in the late afternoon, almost a year to the day after the fall of Sunnydale, Buffy had known immediately that something was wrong.

“Please tell me Cleveland hasn’t been sucked into a hell dimension.”

“No more than usual,” Faith said lightly, but Buffy hadn’t been her phone buddy for months for nothing. She knew that tone of voice. The last time she’d heard it, there had been funeral arrangements to make.

“What happened?”

Faith dropped the act, her voice sinking low. “Remember how Giles asked me to look into what was going on in LA, after he got that phone call from Angel?”

Buffy’s heart had nearly stopped. “Oh, god. It’s LA. LA has been sucked into a hell dimension.”

“What is it with you and hell dimensions today?”

“Sorry. I guess I should let you finish.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you, uh, really should.” Faith had heaved a deep breath, like she was bracing herself. “So we put our best research guys on it, made a few phone calls, cast some runes, all the basic protocols. All the signs pointed to something big. Maybe not apocalypse big, but certainly demon-turf-war big, with Angel right smack dab in the middle. So I went with my gut, assembled a team, and we hopped on the first flight we could.”

Buffy had consciously released her grip on her phone before she shattered it. “Angel’s gone, isn’t he?” It wasn’t really a question; she could almost taste the truth, the moment she said it, and grief had already started washing over her when Faith murmured a confirmation. She and Angel hadn’t really been on speaking terms for the past year -- not after what had gone down with Spike, and especially not after Angel had taken over the reins at Wolfram and Hart -- but it didn’t erase what he’d once been to her.

“Thanks for letting me know,” she’d said dully, and been about to disconnect when Faith spoke again.

“That’s not why I called you.”

“There’s more?”

“Look, near as I can tell, Angel was playing some sort of deep game, trying to take down this wicked-nasty consortium of evil. Got his whole team dragged into it. Gunn went down for sure, and Wesley. Fred… I don’t know what happened to her. I thought I saw her in the ruckus, but something wasn’t right, and nobody’s seen her since. And Lorne’s gone AWOL. For all we know, they’re dead, too.” Faith sighed again. “And as it turns out Cordelia’s been gone for weeks now. She never woke up.”

“So they’re all gone. His whole team.” Buffy hadn’t known any of them well, beyond Cordelia, but they’d been kind to her when the Sunnydale refugees had passed through; the thought of them all dead, every one of them, was heartbreaking.

Faith cleared her throat. “Not exactly. We, um, found someone after the battle. A new member of the team. Barely hanging on, but he’s a survivor.”

She’d rolled her eyes. All this drama over some new recruit? “Good for him.”

“Buffy, it’s Spike.”

That had stolen her voice right away.

“Buffy? Are you there?”

“Yeah. I’m… I’m here.” She’d tried to moisten her lips, but her whole mouth had gone dry. “What was that you just said?” Maybe she’d misheard.

“It’s Spike. He’s here.”

“His ghost?”

“No. In the slightly-crispy flesh.”

“That’s not possible. It has to be some other… someone copying his style. An impersonator.”

“I wouldn’t call you if I wasn’t sure.” Faith’s voice got lower. “He talked to me. Right when I found him, before he went off to lala land.”

“What… what did he say?”

“He said, ‘Don’t tell Buffy.’”

“God.” She’d dashed away angry tears. “How?”

“I don’t know. He’s been doing his best Sleeping Beauty ever since. I’ve got him holed up in my hotel room.” Faith paused for a long moment. “Buffy, it’s bad. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

“Well, that will save me the trouble of killing him. How could he not let me know he was back? How could Angel not tell me?” Her voice was getting higher with hysteria; she took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

“No clue, B. But you might want to check with Andrew. He was the lead on Dana’s retrieval mission, right?”

“He was.” Buffy had to struggle not to break her phone again. “And now that you mention it, he’s been acting funny ever since. He was a massive pain in my behind the whole time we were in Italy.”

“And how is that any different from usual?”

“Good point.”

“So, Buffy. Any messages you want me to pass on when Sleeping Beauty awakens?”

For a moment Buffy missed the days of phones with cords; she would definitely be able to think better if she had a loopy phone cord to run through her fingers. Though the way she was feeling, she’d probably pull all the loops out. “Tell him… tell him….” She sighed. “No. No messages. When he’s up to talking, give me a call. I’ll tell him myself.”

“And if he never is?”

“Then anything I say is just going to be a goodbye. He’s… he’s already heard that.”

“Right. I’ll keep you posted. Tell Giles I’ll fax an official report tonight.”

“I will. And Faith?”

“Yeah, B?”

“I’m glad you told me, even though he said not to.”

“Yeah, well, he’s not the boss of me.” Faith had still been laughing when she disconnected.

It had been a few days before Faith called again, days that Buffy had kept her phone by her side with the ringer on. She’d called Andrew to confront him -- lucky for him he’d been in Belgium, well out of range -- and after a firm lecture regarding his misguided fraternal loyalties, given who was signing his paychecks, he’d given her what little information he had about Spike’s return. It hadn’t been much; it seemed Andrew had been so moved by Spike’s reappearance that he’d never bothered to find out how or why it had happened.

“I thought he’d told you,” Andrew had said at the end. “He said he was going to take care of it. That’s why when he came to Rome--”

“He came to Rome?” Buffy started calculating in her head how long it would take her to get to Belgium. Not that she was going to hit Andrew, fragile twit that he was; she just wanted to get up in his face a little. “Spike came to Rome while I was there?”

“Um… yeah?”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“Um… no? Because I thought you knew. And you were dating the Immortal.”

“Pretending to date.”

“Well, yeah, but you gave me orders to tell everybody you were really dating him.”

Buffy couldn’t argue with that. Those had been her orders. She just hadn’t thought to add in an “except Spike” clause, because Spike had been dead.

Why hadn’t he told her?

After she’d let Andrew get back to whatever administrative job he’d been taking care of today -- for all his faults he’d turned out to be an excellent liaison, especially to their European offices -- she’d spent a few hours in the gym working the punching bag, and then a half hour in the shower, indulging in a good old-fashioned cry, and then she’d gone to the supply cabinet and gotten a notebook and a pen.

She’d started with her very first questions, the ones she already knew she needed answers to. How was he back?And why hadn’t he told her? But then she kept on writing. All the things she needed to ask, all the things she wanted to say, all the things she wanted to scream. She wrote them all down, and then when the notebook was full, she went back to the beginning and read them again, adding notes and question marks and stars by the really important things.

And then she found another sheet of paper, just one, and she painstakingly crafted what she was going to say when she got him on the phone, something carefully non-confrontational and undemanding and gentle, but as clear as she could make it.

Not that she wasn’t going to give him a piece of her mind, eventually; she just really, really wanted to start off right. They’d had so many wrong things between them already, and diplomacy had never been her strong point. And he was still recuperating, according to Faith’s daily emails. She could yell at him later, when he was able to yell back.

When Faith called, she was ready.

She was in her room when the call came, which was good; she wanted privacy. It was nifty being at the top of an international demon-slaying organization, but sometimes the sheer number of people looking up to her was a bit staggering.

“He knows I know, right?” She’d insisted he not be blindsided, either; whatever his reasoning, he’d not wanted her to know he was alive, and if it was what he truly wanted, to never see her again, she’d give it to him.

“Yeah. He was pissed, but I think I heard some relief in there. He wants to hear your voice.”

Buffy’s knees felt weak; she sat on the edge of her bed. “Good. I, um… Yeah. That’s good.” She gave up trying to be mature, and lay down on top of her covers, curling protectively around the phone.

“You ready?”

“No,” Buffy laughed wryly. “But yes. Put him on.”

There was some thumping, a bit of muffled conversation in the background, and then--

“Buffy?”

“Hi Spike.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you for being alive. And for talking to me tonight.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said with a laugh that turned into a cough -- broken ribs, she could tell from the sound. “Thank the incompetent bugger who failed to kill me, and then fell on top of me so when the sun came up I didn’t catch on fire. Well, not much, at least.” He laughed again, and she laughed along, awkwardly, because they both knew it wasn’t funny.

“Look, um, Spike. I know you still need to rest and heal up, and I promised Faith I’d keep it short. So can I just say what I have to say?” She smoothed the paper with her hand; it had gotten a little crumpled. “I wrote it down.”

He coughed again, then sighed. “Yeah. Speak your piece.”

“Okay.” She breathed again, in and out, preparing. “I’m pretty angry at you right now. I wish you had let me know you were alive. But I understand, too. Things were....” Her voice frogged up; she cleared her throat and started back. “They weren’t ever settled between us, and I know I didn’t give you a lot of reasons to believe I’d be happy to hear the news. And I gave you a lot of reasons _not_ to believe, too. But please believe me now. I am really, really happy you’re back, that I can speak to you again. I really want to earn back your faith and your trust. I want a chance to be your friend, and your ally. You saved the world, and that’s awesome, and I’m so proud of you, but you also saved me, and I still believe in you. And I meant what I said, down there in the Hellmouth. So get better, and I hope you’ll let me call and talk to you again. I, um, have a lot of questions.”

There was a long silence, and then he coughed again. “That _was_ a pretty short speech, for you,” he finally said, voice dry. 

“It was longer,” she said softly. “But then I cut out the yelling. I figured that could wait until you were back on your feet.”

“As long as you don’t wait forever,” Spike said, voice low and suggestive. “Been an age since I’ve heard you in a temper. Would do me a world of good.”

“Yeah?” She found herself smiling, though she was also crying, as quietly as she could. “I’ll be sure to yell next time.”

He burst into another coughing fit then, and after a bit more rustling, Faith came back on the line. “Say what you needed to, B?”

“Not all of it. But enough, I hope.”

“Wait a sec.” Faith’s voice grew faint, like she’d put the phone down. “You sure?” She came back, loud again. “Spike wants to say something else.”

“Okay.”

“Slayer?” His voice was rougher, but urgent. “I’m sorry. Angel--” He coughed again.

“Angel made his own choices,” Buffy said softly, hoping Spike was listening. Hoping she was saying the right thing, now that they’d gone off-script. “I know you did your best to help him, and I know he, um, that he would have wanted to-- It’s not your fault.” She paused, then went on in a low voice. “Angel didn’t even like cookies, you know? So I wasn’t baking… them for him.” Ugh, was she being too cryptic?

There was a pause while he digested that. “But you’re... baking cookies,” he said at last, in a sly voice.

She _knew_ he’d been eavesdropping that day! “Uh-huh. They’re almost ready to come out of the oven.”

“Is that so?” He coughed again, muttering something that sounded like _not yet_ to someone else. “So your cookies are baked.”

“Just about.” She curled around the phone again, feeling like she was melting. “Um, do you like cookies?”

There was another long pause. “Chocolate chip?”

“Do you want them to be?”

“I’ll eat what you serve me.” His voice dropped down to a whisper, faintly echoing, like he’d cupped his hand around the phone. “But the thing with chocolate chip is, if you get them right out of the oven, the chocolate’s still all warm and melty, right? So what I like to do is, I like to take my tongue and--”

He burst into another coughing fit; there was a brief rustling.

“I think that’s enough excitement for our patient for one evening,” Faith’s voice said over the phone.

Buffy huffed in frustration, but she could still hear Spike coughing in the background. “Okay. You’ll keep me posted?”

“Yeah. You know it.”

“Okay then.” Buffy traced a finger over her coverlet. “Can you put the phone by his ear? I want to say good night.”

Faith laughed. “Yeah, gimme a sec.” The coughing grew louder; Buffy faintly heard Faith’s voice giving her the go ahead.

“Don’t push yourself, Spike,” Buffy said softly. “You can call me any time you want, okay? Good night.” She hesitated, but there wasn’t any reason not to say it except fear. “I love you.”

She’d disconnected. Because, yeah, she was still a little bit of a coward when it came to Spike.

Faith had called back a little while later, when Buffy had been getting ready for bed. “I’m taking Spike back to Cleveland with me. That okay with you?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because I’m not taking him to London.”

“Oh.” Buffy ignored the little stab of hurt in her chest. “Did he, um… did he ask--”

“He’s been out like a light since a little after he talked to you. This was my idea.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Why?”

“Couple reasons. First off, you do not need to see him like this.”

“I’ve seen him on fire.” Buffy swallowed, picturing other moments -- smoking, draped across a cross, battered beneath her in an alley, bruised and bleeding from torture, defiant in a torchlit cavern, all the times he’d been injured by her or because of her. “I’ve seen him pretty bad.”

“You haven’t seen him this bad. Trust me, even after three days of the best vamp intensive care we’ve got, he’s still more barbecue than man. It could still go either way. And it’s not just physical. I don’t know what went down with Angel’s crew, but he’s been eyeing the curtains like he wants to take a walk in sun country.”

Dammit, another phone-cord-fiddling occasion, and not a phone cord in sight. “Did I make it worse?”

“No, definitely better -- he cussed me out good while I was checking his ribs -- but if he’s suicidal, that doesn’t go away easy. I’d like Felipe to have a session or twelve with him.”

Buffy nodded -- even knowing Faith couldn’t see it, the physical confirmation helped her feel the rightness of it. “Gotcha. If anybody can help a vampire with a soul through an existential crisis, he can.” Buffy’d had a few fruitful phone sessions with the Cleveland in-house therapist herself; providing counseling for slayers had been one of the better ideas they’d implemented since taking over.

“Bingo. So there’s your reason number one. Spike needs to recuperate, and I think Cleveland is the best place to do it.”

“All right. There’s a second reason?”

“Yeah.” Faith sighed. “Okay. You know the long haul’s not my thing. I’m still reeling from being with the same guy for a month. But from what I’ve been hearing for the past year, you’re all loaded down with Spike-shaped regrets. You don’t just want him back for a weekend, or for a day, right?”

Buffy took her time answering, because she wanted to be sure. She thought about her notebook of questions and rage and grief, the common thread that had emerged when she’d read and reread.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I want the long haul, if he’s up for it.”

“That’s what I thought. So the last thing you need is to be trying to work together at the same time as you’re trying to make it work. From what you’ve told me, everything you’ve ever had has been in a pressure cooker. And that’s not your fault, or his; you were where you were, and you built what you could. But now -- and again, not my thing at all -- now you have a second chance. And I may know bupkiss about the long haul, but second chances? I know all about those.”

“All right.” Buffy sighed. “I do understand.”

“So I’ll take him back to Cleveland. Get him healed up, maybe put him to work. We could use an extra hand that knows which direction to point a stake. And in the meantime, I’ll also get him a phone. Fun as it is to be your go-between, a girl needs some privacy.”

“Thanks. Privacy would be of the good.”

Faith laughed. “Who said I was talking about you? I don’t want to have to listen to you two every night. I have a life.”

“Right.” Buffy laughed too, suddenly giddy. “God. I can’t believe he’s alive.”

“Says the slayer who’s died twice.”

“Yeah. I guess Spike and I are even now.”

“Except that technically he’s still dead.”

“He’s alive enough for me,” Buffy whispered.

“Well, I’ll try to keep it that way.”

“Thanks. I really mean it.”

“No worries, B,” Faith breezed. “You can buy me a drink some time. And a Lamborghini.”

“Do you take Hot Wheels?” Buffy laughed. “Otherwise you’ll be waiting a while.”

“Then I’ll just take the drink. Top shelf, though. I’ve got rank and privilege these days.”

“No Boone’s Strawberry Hill. Got it.”

“Buffy?”

“Yeah?”

“He was really happy. He tried to hide it, but you should have seen his face light up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We’ll be hitting the road pretty soon here, but I’ll text you his number as soon as he has one. After that, it’s up to you guys.”

“Well, that’s reassuring. You know how fantastic I am at relationships.”

“Come on. You’ve already got Faith on your side. You just need a little hope and trust.”

“And a little pinch of pixie dust?”

“You got it. Okay, I gotta motor.”

After they’d hung up, Buffy had flopped on her bed and stared at the ceiling, trying not to imagine what Spike looked like that could possibly be worse than what she’d seen. For some reason, the image that kept sticking in her mind was the first time she’d kissed him -- really kissed him, of her own free will, not under magical influence. His face all battered from Glory’s torture, his lips cool under hers. The moment he’d realized it was really her.

That was when it had started, for her. The day she’d first seen the real man intertwined with the monster.

She didn’t fall asleep for several more hours.

The messages from Faith came two days later, when Buffy was just leaving a financial meeting; her phone had been silenced, so it just buzzed in her purse. With a nod of farewell to Giles, she’d leaned against a wall to read them.

_Hey B (440) 243-3327_

_He’s got the standard agent-at-large package. Unlimited texting & international minutes._

_Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do._

After a brief pause, her phone buzzed again.

_But you should totally do everything I WOULD do._

Buffy stared at the number for several minutes, frowning, then pressed the appropriate buttons to save the number to her phone. Her fingers shook as she typed in his name, all in caps. _Spike._ She stared at it for a long moment, then erased and retyped it. _AAA Spike._

The display showed him right at the top of her contacts list, just under _AAA Dawn_.

Had Faith given him her number, too? Had he programmed it into his phone? If she called, would he accept it? What time was it in Cleveland?

Ugh.

Finally, she typed in a message and sent it.

_Hey._

The reply came almost instantly.

_Yes?_

_Nothing special. Just saying hey._

_Hello, gorgeous._ That sent shivers down her spine; was it possible for a text message to drop an octave?

_How are you feeling?_

_Like I’ve been squashed like a bug, set on fire, and left for dead. You?_

_Just got out of a two-hour financial meeting, so same._

_Poor Slayer._

_Yeah. You know the story. One girl in all the world, she alone will stand against the spreadsheets, the pie charts, and the abuse of corporate credit cards._

_> :)=_

Buffy snorted. _What’s that supposed to be?_

_Faith said it’s a smiley. I dunno. I had a cell phone in LA but nobody ever sent me smileys._

Buffy fought back the urge to ask why he’d never called her, or sent a text.  _:) This is a normal smiley. So why the evil eyebrows? And what’s with the equal sign?_

_I have evil eyebrows. I’m wiggling them right now. And those are fangs. Grr. Argh._

Buffy laughed at that, breaking off when she intercepted a look of censure from one of the elder Watchers in the hallway. _You’re a dope._  She started walking off towards her office.

_Made you laugh, didn’t I?_

_People in London aren’t supposed to laugh. It’s not civilized._

Spike’s reply was slow in coming; she was halfway to her office when her phone buzzed again. _You’re not hanging out in the right parts of London, love._

Buffy bit her lip, walking faster. The speed made her fingers fumble a bit on the keys. Yep. That was it. She was just waking too fast. Finally she managed to get out her reply. _Maybe someday you can show me the right parts of London._

_Maybe._

Why did his agreement feel so cold? Buffy shied away from the subject. _How is Faith doing?_

_Not bad. She runs a tight ship. Been bossing me around but good._

A wave of jealousy took Buffy by surprise; she hadn’t been jealous of Faith since… well, since Sunnydale. Of course. _Getting lots of rest?_

_That’s where the bossing comes in. She seems to think it’s her sacred duty to make sure I’m bored as fuck._

_Are you bored now?_

_Bloody hell, Slayer. Of course not._

_Sorry. I was fishing._

_Fish all you like, love. I’ll bite._

Oh god. Buffy fumbled with the key to her office. _Promise?_  she managed to type out.

Her phone was silent for a long time; she got the door unlocked and locked again behind her and was all the way to her chair when her phone buzzed again.

_Yeah._

She nearly fell into her chair, her hip catching on the adjustable ergonomic armrest. So much for ergonomics. _What time is it there?_

_Early morning. Sun’s been up a bit. After lunch for you?_

_Yeah. I’m supposed to be at another meeting in half an hour. Something about werewolves._

_In London? I hear their hair is perfect._

_LOL. What about you?_

_No meetings. Not allowed out of bed yet._

_Are you allowed to talk on the phone?_ Buffy held her breath.

_Yes and no._

_Well, that’s not ambiguous at all. Can I call you?_

_When?_

_Now?_

_I’m not supposed to get too excited. Doctor’s orders._

_I promise not to be exciting._

_That’s bloody impossible, Slayer. But yeah, call me._

_OK. I’m calling you._

He picked up before the first ring completed. “Hello, gorgeous.” She’d been right; definitely a full octave lower.

“Hey, you.” That came out almost calm.

He chuckled faintly. “Bad form, Slayer. You promised not to be exciting.”

“That was literally the most boring greeting I could think of, Spike.”

“Must just be me, then.” He coughed faintly. “Tell me what you’re wearing.”

“This is what you call a not-exciting topic?”

“Just trying to get an image to go with the voice, pet.”

“I am wearing a really boring suit. Pants and a jacket and a white blouse.”

“Ruffles?”

“Pointy collar.”

“Mmm. What color suit?”

“Black. I’m like a penguin.”

“All right, then. I’m wearing a bloody hospital gown. It’s blue.”

“Very nice. Does it show off your butt?”

“It would if I were allowed to walk. Which I’m not.” He coughed again, harder.

“I’m tiring you out. I should let you go.” She didn’t want to, though; his voice was thready and rough, but it was his voice.

“Not yet, Slayer. Just a little bit more.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me how Dawn is doing.”

“She’s good. She’s about to graduate high school, in Rome. She got into, like, 5 different colleges, with scholarships. I think she picked Cambridge, though. She’s really into languages now.”

“Good on Niblet.” He coughed for a bit. “Does she know?”

“Not yet. I was… Well, I was worried you weren’t going to make it. I didn’t want her to have that… loss again.”

“Fair sure she doesn’t miss me.”

“She does. She cried for weeks after… after.” _So did I._ “And I wanted to make sure you were okay with it. You, um, didn’t want… people to know you were back.” He was silent at that, and she rushed on. “Giles knows because of Faith’s report, but I haven’t told anybody else. Oh, except Andrew, because he already knew.”

“Don’t kill him. I made him promise, man to man.”

“So he said.” That came out snippy, and she wished immediately she could take it back, but Spike laughed.

“There you are, Slayer.” That was low, his voice like velvet over gravel; Buffy shivered.

“Yeah. Here I am.” She tried to keep it light. “Of course, being Andrew, he said he’d promised _mano a mano_. I didn’t have the heart to tell him hand-to-hand promises weren’t a thing. So, um, can I tell Dawn? She’ll be--”

“I’m sorry, Buffy. Was a cowardly thing, not telling you.”

She curled her fingers around the phone. “Yeah. Well.” She swallowed. “You’re not the only coward in this relationship.”

“Is that what this is--” He broke off. “Yeah, tell Dawn.”

“I’ll tell her right away. She’ll go nuts. Do you want me to give her your number?”

“Yeah. But tell her texts only. Don’t think I could keep up with a Dawn conversation just now.”

“Oh, she’s all grown up. She only talks half a mile a minute now, and she’s been working on the decibels.” Buffy sighed. “And of course we have a relationship. I, um, don’t know what our relationship is, just this second. You just got back. But we have one.”

“Right.”

“And, um. I don’t have any… I’m not… Andrew may have told you….” She set her jaw. “I’m not dating anybody else.”

“Ah.” He coughed a bit. “Kicked the Immortal to the curb, did you?”

“In the sense of ‘I was only pretending to date him so I could get close enough to take down his international cartel of evil and then stake him with extreme prejudice,’ yeah.”

Spike was silent for a long time. “Well, bugger.”

“Don’t kill Andrew,” Buffy said wryly. “He was trying to preserve my cover.”

“So you staked the Immortal?” Did she detect a hint of awe in his voice?

“Oh, yeah. He was… well, he was not very nice.” Understatement of the year, there; Buffy still felt ill thinking of some of what she’d unearthed on that mission. “There was a bit more than staking involved. Salt and burning and stuff. But that’s what junior slayers are for.”

“I knew there was a reason I--” Spike burst into another coughing fit.

“You need to rest,” Buffy said gently when the coughing had subsided.

“Yeah, probably. But I’m just so bored.” Buffy imagined he was pouting, which made her grin.

“Have you tried sudoku?”

“Vi bought me some bloody coloring books. Pokémon and the like.  And I have a telly, but there’s nothing on half the time. I’m going out of my bloody mind, Slayer.”

“Well, I promise to text you more. Will that help?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’ll help.”

“And Dawn will be in touch soon, I’m sure. You’ll be texting your fingers off.”

“Lucky me.”

“Um, anyone else I can tell? Willow, Xander?” Did Spike even know Anya was dead?

“Yeah, that’s all right. Tell anyone you like.” He coughed again. “But don’t give bloody Andrew my number.”

“Gotcha.” She heaved a deep breath. “So, I should let you go.”

“Guess so.”

“Yeah.”

Spike was silent for a long time, but didn’t disconnect.

“Spike?” Buffy finally ventured. “Are you asleep?”

“No, just… listening to you breathe. Figured you’d hang up eventually.”

“Oh.” She twirled her fingers in her hair. “I didn’t want to hang up first.”

“Right.”

“I’ll text you later, after my meeting.”

“All right.”

Buffy bit her lip. “Okay. Later. I love you.”

She hung up.

He phone buzzed a few seconds later. _Bad form, Slayer. Could give a fellow a few seconds to respond._

 _I told you I was a coward._ She bit her lip and hastily typed a second message. _I don’t want to pressure you._

_Ah._

_I mean, people change and things change and you didn’t want me to know you were alive._

_Some things don’t change._

_Okay then._ She waited a few seconds, debating, but they were already talking about it, and she had to know. _Do you believe me?_

_What do you mean?_

Was he really asking, or just playing dumb? _You didn’t believe me when I told you before. You said, “No you don’t, but thanks for saying it.”_

_I did say that._

Buffy typed a dozen responses, deleting each one before she could send it. She was trying to think of just the right thing to say when her phone buzzed again, four times. She read the messages quickly.

_I don’t know if I meant it when I said it. I was on fire, and I knew I was dying, and I wasn’t thinking my best. And even my best thinking isn’t all that_

_good. You know that. But I remember you saying it, and I knew you meant the words. I could see it in your eyes. But I needed you to leave. There wasn’t t_

_ime for a cuddle and a smooch, or a big romantic finish. I said what I thought I needed to say to get you out the door and safe. I didn’t think I’d be co_

_ming back, and I didn’t want you wasting your life thinking about me. But I believed you._

Her phone buzzed again. _Bugger. That was supposed to be all one message. Sorry._

 _Welcome to texting._ She heaved a deep breath before typing her next message. _I’m glad you believed me then. Do you believe me now?_

He took a long time to respond again. _Yeah. I believe you._

 _OK. Next time I won’t hang up. But you don’t need to say anything back, if you don’t want to._ God, was that actually as awkward as it felt to her? Lame, lame, lame. Why had she hit send?

 _All right._ Ugh, she couldn’t tell if that was grateful or annoyed.

_I have to go to my meeting. But I’ll text you again tonight, OK? Get some rest._

_I will._

Buffy stuffed her phone in her purse before she could send another message. He really did need to rest, she’d heard it in his voice. She managed to make it a whole minute before she pulled her phone out again, sending Dawn a message.

_Call me when you’re out of class. Really important. Good news so don’t freak out._

And okay, after that she spent the rest of her walk to the conference room scrolling back through her conversation with Spike, smiling and frowning and trying to read between the lines, because that wasn’t going to wake him up, right? And it had been a good conversation. They’d said a lot more than she’d thought they would, and she’d heard his voice, and he was getting better. He’d been almost back to his usual snarky, flirty self, though she’d bet he still looked like roadkill; Faith had steadfastly refused to send her a picture.

And he’d believed her.

That was a really good start.

END CHAPTER 1


	2. Drinks and Appetizers

The margarita was gigantic, all right; Buffy saw it across the crowded room and sat up straighter in her chair like the Prime Minister of England had just walked into the room. (Which had actually happened, one memorable day in the London offices; the British attitude towards the supernatural was far less militaristic and far more chummy than she’d expected. Not that they didn’t want humanity safe and vampires dead; they just went about it more… Britishly. She couldn’t quite describe what that meant, but she had the impression the PM would have been politely embarrassed by the Initiative, both for their bludgeoning approach and for their lack of success. British commandos, she had learned, did not mess around.)

But anyhow, she was totally ready for that margarita. Not that she intended to get drunk tonight -- she most definitely had non-drunk plans -- but the buzz from the mini bottles of wine she’d nervously sipped on her flight for courage had already abandoned her, and the niceness of holding Spike’s hand was quickly losing ground to a renewed flood of terror. He was just so… calm. How was Spike calm when she was barely able to speak without gibbering? As it was, she was going to have to ask Faith and Michael to submit their reports in writing later, because she’d barely heard a word they had said so far.

In the meantime, they all had their drinks, and she just had a glass of water, and it didn’t seem quite fair somehow; she could really use something to relax her muscles. So when she saw the waitress finally leaving the bar with what had to be _her_ margarita on a tray, she was dizzy with relief.

“Oh, I cannot wait to get _you_ into my mouth,” she crooned to her destined booze as it approached.

Spike’s hand jolted in hers and his half-full beer bottle went crashing to the floor.

“Bugger!” he bit out and dove after it, except he was still holding on to Buffy’s hand, and so his first lunge fell short and sent the bottle whirling, spilling beer in an arc across the floor, and then he leaned out further into the aisle to try and snatch it, and that was the exact moment their waitress turned the corner with Buffy’s perfect margarita, salt crusted like diamonds on its rim, and then Spike’s arm met waitress’s shin, and Buffy watched in horror as her perfect, gigantic, desperately-needed margarita wobbled on the tray and then tumbled, splashing and splintering into shards on the tile.

“Bloody buggering _fuck_ ,” Spike muttered, letting go of Buffy’s hand with a mortified glance. “Sorry, uh, Josie? My fault. I’ll just, uh.... He dropped to his knees and started helping the waitress pick up larger shards of glass, setting them on her tray. “Bugger.”

Buffy was about to slip out of her seat to help as well, when she saw another waitress bustling out with a broom and a mop bucket. “Looks like the cavalry’s arrived,” she said, patting Spike on the shoulder.

Spike looked up, eyes frantic. “What?” He ran a hand through his hair, disordering the gelled waves.

“I’m sure they appreciate your willingness to help, Spike,” she said gently. “But things will actually go better if you get out of their way and just leave a big tip.”

“Oh. Right.” He picked up a few more shards of glass before reluctantly standing up and sliding back into his seat. Josie and her helper swiftly got the fragments swept up and the floor mopped, a yellow cone set out as a warning; with a promise of a replacement drink, they carted the tragic remains of her margarita away.

“Wow, Spike,” Faith drawled. “If you wanted to play Spin the Bottle tonight, all you had to do was ask.”

“Sod off,” Spike growled sullenly, flickering a glance at Buffy.

Faith grinned. “Did I ever tell you about the betting pool the girls got going?” Spike muttered something nasty under his breath that she ignored.

“About Spin the Bottle?” Buffy gave Spike a flirty look; she’d noticed that the bottle had ended up pointing right at her, before it had been cleared away, and she was pretty sure he had, too. “Is that what the slayers have been doing in their free time?”

“Not bloody interested in infants,” Spike grumbled, glaring at the damp floor. “Wouldn’t bloody--”

“Our Prince of Coordination here likes to show off, right?” Faith said, still ignoring Spike. “Flashy cartwheels, spin kicks, waiting until the last minute to pull off some cool-ass move.”

“Sounds about right,” Buffy grinned.

“Like you’re one to talk,” Spike retorted. “I remember when--”

“This is my story time,” Faith interrupted. “You two can argue about which of you is the bigger diva on your own time, _capisce_? So anyhow, one or two of the girls started noticing some things, and then once they mentioned it, it just seemed obvious to everyone else, and then before we know it they had a whole chart worked out, and a payout scheme, over-unders, side bets, the works.”

“Betting on what? How many spin kicks he’d throw in a night? I think I once counted twelve.”

“Nope.” Faith leaned back in her seat, grinning smugly. “See, you’d call him sometimes right before he went on patrol. Bedtime for you was just after dark for us, and so he’d take your call, say goodnight, then head out to work. What the girls started betting on -- the main thing -- was just how long Spike could go after you hung up before he’d experience a truly epic fail. Falling into an open grave, tripping over his own feet, walking into the side of a mausoleum.”

Buffy met Spike’s glare with a sly smile. “Oh, really?”

Faith nudged Spike reassuringly. “He was still kicking ass, all right? When the fight started, he’d slide on into battle mode and work his mojo. But when he wasn’t in that zone, he’d sometimes get all moony, and disaster would strike.” Faith stirred her rum-and-coke, giving Spike a sidelong glance. “Vi once won a hundred bucks when he managed to tumble ass-over-teakettle within the first five minutes. He hadn’t even made it to the night’s briefing.”

“You’re kidding.”

Michael folded his arms. “I ran a statistical analysis on the pools for the first month and ended up winning two hundred the second.”

“He took me to Edwin’s,” Faith confided, closing her eyes in remembered bliss.

“See, Slayer?” Spike muttered. “This is what happens when you start giving out allowances.”

“They’re salaries, as you should know since you get one, and aren’t you the guy who taught my kid sister to gamble for pennies?” Buffy drummed her fingers on the table.

“Poker is a life skill. Was teaching Dawn how to survive.”

Josie arrived then with a replacement margarita, along with another beer for Spike; Buffy watched Spike over the rim as she set her lips to the salt. “Mmm.”

He watched her drink, nakedly fascinated.

“Good, huh?” Faith leaned on her elbows. “Wait till the calamari gets here. Food of the gods.”

“Finger-licking good?” Buffy trailed a finger through her margarita, watching Spike as she popped it in her mouth.

He narrowed his eyes. “Just don’t fill up on the appetizers,” he purred. “Wouldn’t want to miss the main course.”

“See there?” Faith gestured at Spike. “One minute he’s all Fonzie-cool, and the next minute it’s like he’s auditioning to become the fourth Stooge.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell, will you give it a rest?”

Buffy smiled and reached out her hand across the table. “Wish I’d known about the betting pool earlier. Might’ve slipped Vi some inside information. We could have cleaned up.” Spike glared at her, but slipped his hand in hers again. It was very slightly sticky.

Faith tsked. “Cheating, Buffy? I am shocked. _Shocked._ ”

“Hey, I don’t cheat.” Buffy dragged her fingers along the back of Spike’s hand, catching on the stickiness. “I just play to win. Do you have any idea how much Cambridge costs?”

Their appetizers arrived then, and Buffy reluctantly let go of Spike’s hand so they could fit the dishes on the table.

“Here, B. Try this.” Faith squeezed a lemon wedge over one of the calamari rings and held it out across the table; Buffy took it delicately into her mouth, eyes drifting closed at the flavor as she chewed and swallowed.

“Oh my god. You were not kidding.”

“I know, right? The cocktail sauce is delish too, but it doesn’t need it.”

“But she should try it with the sauce,” Spike purred. “Just to have the complete experience.”

Buffy opened her eyes to see Spike’s fingers holding another calamari ring, this one with a light dredging of red. She smiled sweetly and opened her mouth, letting him pop it in. She’d half expected him to do something sexy with his fingers -- dragging them across her lips, or letting her lick the sauce off, but instead he returned his fingers to his own mouth, sucking them clean, eyes on hers. Which was, she admitted to herself, even sexier.

Faith rolled her eyes. “I’d tell you two to get a room, except I’m pretty sure Buffy got a room.” She winked at Michael.

“Here, have another--” Spike began, only for Faith to move the calamari plate out of his reach.

“Nuh-uh, buddy. First off, the rest of us also get some of the squid. I did not order it just for your enjoyment. Second, if you think we’re going to sit here and watch you feed Buffy bit by bit the rest of the night, you have got another think coming. Some of us have plans.”

“Also, I just spent fifteen hours traveling, during which I ate three teensy bags of peanuts, one extremely small in-flight lunch, and one severely-overpriced, also-extremely-small Canadian quesadilla.” Buffy started to load up her plate. “If I don’t eat some real food soon, I’m going to gnaw off an arm. Probably not my own.”

Spike grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Could give you pointers on that.”

“Or, I could just eat.” Buffy popped a fried mushroom in her mouth.

Spike tilted his head to the side, watching her. Which was both nerve-wracking and weirdly comforting.

“Spike?” Faith said through a mouthful of food. “Maybe you could give your report while the rest of us are stuffing our faces?”

“What? Oh. Right. Report.” His gaze drifted back to Buffy; she licked a bit of imaginary sauce off her lip, just because. “What is it I’m supposed to be reporting on?”

Faith elbowed him. “Training. Your training sessions with the newbies.”

“Right then.” Spike cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ve been training the newbies.”

Buffy slowly wrapped her lips around a mozzarella stick. “Mmm-hmm?” she hummed encouragingly, smiling as his eyes glazed over.

“For Pete’s sake, B! And here I thought you were supposed to be the ‘good slayer.’” She made air quotes.

Buffy hastily chewed and swallowed. “That was the nineties. In this century, good girls are allowed to have sex and like it.” She looked at Faith when she said that, suddenly shy. It was all very well to believe it, but old habits died hard.

“Not at the table, please,” Michael murmured.

“Yeah, as it turns out restaurants frown on that.” Faith’s eyelids drooped in sensual remembrance. “Edwin’s, we hardly knew ye.” She snagged the last ring of calamari. “And I am not giving up the squid of the gods forever for you guys. You’ve got a room.”

“Sorry!” Buffy said, though she wasn’t sorry at all, not with the way she was tingling in all the best places. “This dating business is kind of new to me.”

Faith laughed. “Now I know that’s a lie. You’ve been on dates before.”

“Not with Spike,” Buffy clarified. “Not a date-date, with small talk and polite company.” She looked at Spike then, straight in the eyes. “This is our first date.” Oh, and there it was. That look. That look like she was Venus making her grand entrance on the half-shell, a Renaissance goddess with unbelievably perfect hair. Like his voice had been literally stolen away.

Faith smiled then, softer than Buffy had ever seen. “Well, here’s to first dates and second chances.” She lifted her glass.

“It’s not a second chance if the dice were loaded the first time around,” Michael said with the cadence of something often repeated. He clinked his glass with hers.

“Too true. In that case, here’s to new beginnings.” She clinked with Buffy and Spike before drinking.

“To new beginnings,” Buffy murmured.

Spike grinned then, eyes still soft. “Mercy me. I do hope you’ll favor me with a first kiss goodnight.”

“Play your cards right, you might even get to first base,” Buffy said coyly. “But first things first. I want to hear about you training the newbies.”

“Nothing you haven’t heard before,” Spike shrugged.

“I know. But I still want to hear it, in your voice.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Tell me about your day.”

Spike nodded and launched into an account of his work with the newest slayer recruits; he’d been given the task of both impressing upon them the danger of vampires and encouraging them to open up to their instincts to fight them, much as he’d done for Buffy in Sunnydale. It started out dry, but eventually he got into his subject, enthusiastically recounting his latest training session, complete with sound effects and hand gestures.

“So, are they going out into the field ready? Confident they can do the job, and equipped with some knowledge and techniques?” There was only so much one could do to simulate the very real death matches the slayers would eventually face, but they had tried over the past year to develop the training methods they’d used in Sunnydale to meet the changing needs of an army of slayers.

“As ready as they can be. Not one of them has what you have,” he said frankly. “They all have strength, agility, intelligence, slayer instincts. But you have something more, makes you extra deadly. Dunno if it’s your tenacity, your guts, or just the mysterious, sack-of-hammers way your mind works, but it makes you the best slayer I’ve ever fought, in more than a hundred and twenty years.”

“Hey!” Faith elbowed him hard enough to make him grunt. “Sitting right here!”

He shrugged. “You’re all right.” He followed that up with a nasty-but-affectionate grin, the kind Buffy remembered using when she’d pick on Dawn.

“Well, see if you get a raise next year!”

“Get paid plenty already,” he said negligently.

Faith elbowed him again, and he laughed.

“We’ve noticed that, too. The range of ability in the new crop of slayers,” Buffy said when they’d quieted down. “Giles has a theory about why, of course.”

“Of course Rupert has a theory. He’s probably done up a paper, complete with footnotes and a few cunning charts.”

“I can neither confirm or deny the existence of a paper, mostly because any time Giles shoves non-urgent documents in front of me I run for the hills.” Buffy poked at her half-gone margarita. “Thank god I get to go out in the field regularly, or I’d start staking the lateral file cabinets. I swear those things are evil.”

Faith exchanged a glance with Michael. “You call Spike _after_ you patrol, right?”

Buffy blinked. “Um, usually? But I don’t go out every night.”

“Uh-huh. Any way you could keep me posted on your fieldwork schedule? It would be hella useful in planning my own training schedule.”

“You plan? Since when?”

“The information would be very helpful to my analysis,” Michael said blandly.

Buffy set down her drink just so she could point at Faith. “Oh my god! You’re going to use this for that betting pool!”

Faith shrugged. “Well, we both know what slaying does to a girl’s… appetite.”

“Wouldn’t be surprising if there were some… ripple effects, shall we say?” Michael grinned across at Faith.

She winked back. “Just saying, a girl could get used to five-star restaurants. The ones we haven’t been banned from.”

“You are impossible,” Buffy laughed, sneaking an embarrassed peek at Spike, who somehow managed to look pissed off and smug at the same time. “But just for the record, what was the date that Vi hit the jackpot?”

“Remember that yamauba?” Spike said, resigned. “The one had it in her noggin to set up shop at the Victoria and Albert?”

“Oh.” Buffy could feel her face turning red. “Yeah, I remember that night.”

Faith held out her hand across the table, pinky finger out. “Seriously, B. You just tell me your schedule, and I will gladly slip in a side bet on your behalf. Pinky swear?”

Buffy rolled her eyes, but she hooked her pinky with Faith’s. “The bursar at Cambridge thanks you for your service.”

“I’m not a bloody dancing bear, though,” Spike pointed out. “I’m unpredictable. Not like you lot know what sets me off. Could be the phases of the moon, or the Man U match. Or even if it’s Buffy, could be a night she was nice to me, or a night she was a royal bitch.”

Buffy fluttered her eyelashes. “Who, me? I’m always nice.”

Wicked creature that he was, he fluttered his lashes right back. “Didn’t say which I liked better.”

*

She’d made it exactly one week before she snapped.

In retrospect it was inevitable; she’d done such a good job of writing out all the things she wanted to know and wanted to say that when some of those things went unknown and unsaid, she got a trifle impatient. And while she generally managed to work out some of her impatience on patrol, or in her daily gym sessions, the sad truth was she could only stake so many vampires and hit a punching bag so many times before she had to admit that it wasn’t getting at the root cause of her tension, which was that Spike still wasn’t talking about anything she needed to know.

Also in retrospect, she wished she’d managed to address things like a mature grown-up, with a carefully-crafted script and a list of bullet points and active listening skills and all the stuff Felipe had suggested she try, but that hadn’t happened either.

No, what had actually happened was, they’d had a lovely week of sending sweet, surface-flirty, not-saying-anything text messages. _Hello, gorgeous_ and _how are your ribs today?_ and _LOL!demons_ and _I’m going to make an innuendo but then when you respond to it I’m going to pretend I didn’t say it._ It had been very rom-com adorable, and if they’d been two teenagers sending messages across the chemistry lab, they would have been perfectly acceptable.

As a grown woman trying to communicate with a century-old vampire with whom she’d had a long, complicated, and brutally close relationship, it was as frustrating as hell.

When he was still stuck in bed, his ribs and his skin healing and itching, of course she was patient. Of course she was. She wasn’t a terrible human being! And when he’d started walking around a few days later, going to see Felipe or having a beer with Faith, light activity only? She’d been just as encouraging as a sort-of-undefined-girlfriend could be. She’d laughed at his self-deprecating jokes and offered her support and commiserated with his annoyance at his own infirmity.

And then he’d gone on patrol.

She’d found out after, of course. When she’d gone to bed, it had been with the expectation that he was settling down for a game of Parcheesi with Vi; they’d whispered softly to each other over the phone, and once again he’d flirted and suggested -- except she was starting to feel like the flirting was all an act, like his heart wasn’t in it, because he kept pulling back just when she was getting into it -- and then she’d hung up and gone to punch her favorite punching bag for a while, and then curled up in her bed feeling very, very alone.

When she woke up, there was a text message waiting.

_Just got back from patrol. Be more fun if you were here._

It was a totally normal message, she told herself. Totally normal. No reason to be upset. _Since when--_ She deleted that. _So you’re feeling well enough to patrol?_

_Did all right._

_I wish you’d told me beforehand._ She sat up in bed.

_What? Why?_

_I just wish you’d told me._

_Can patrol if I bloody well want to._

_Did Faith sign off on this?_

_Not like she’s my boss._

Buffy’s fingers shook as she typed. _Yes, she is. You have a corporate phone, you are living in the Cleveland headquarters, and you are patrolling. Faith is factually your boss._

_Bugger that. I’m off to bed. Goodnight, love._

Buffy should have left it at that, she told herself later. She really should have. That would have been the mature thing to do. Instead, she’d hit the quick-key to dial Spike’s number, picking up her notepad off the nightstand. The second one, the one in which she’d written all the phrases books and Felipe suggested she use in an argument, to keep it from getting ugly.

He picked up on the fourth ring. “Hello, gorgeous.”

She threw her notebook across the room. “Don’t you _hello, gorgeous_ me, buster! What the hell were you thinking?!”

There was a moment of silence, and then he snarled back. “Was bloody _bored!_ Been in that bloody bed for days!”

“Oh, so that’s a good enough reason to go off and get killed?”

“Didn’t get killed, did I?”

“You could have! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What, that I was going to patrol? You’d already gone beddy-bye, love. Didn’t want to wake you.”

“Bullshit! You knew I’d want to know, and you still didn’t tell me? Why didn’t you just call?”

“I texted you as soon as I got back!”

But Buffy was crying now as well as yelling, ugly-crying, barely able to breathe. “Yeah, after! You texted me after! But I guess I’m supposed to be happy you texted me at all this time. Why didn’t you tell me before?” She jumped to her feet, she needed to _move_.

“You’d gone to--”

“No!” She yelled it as loud as she could, because she couldn’t stop it now, the floodgates were open and it was all coming out. “Before before! When I thought you were dead and you weren’t dead and you didn’t tell me! You just let me keep thinking you were dead! You were alive and you didn’t call me and then stupid _Andrew_ knew you were alive and you still didn’t call me and then you came to Italy and you were even in the same stupid club as me and you couldn’t just _call me_ and tell me you were alive! Why didn’t you just tell me?” She broke off, panting and sniffling and feeling like the worst person ever, yelling at an invalid. _Well enough to patrol, well enough to get chewed out,_ she told herself.

He was silent for a long time, before he spoke, soothingly. “Buffy, love--”

His calm voice just made her more furious. “Oh, no! Don’t you try to Buffy-whisper me either! You and your sexy voice can stifle it until you’re ready to give me an explanation! Were you that scared of me? Didn’t you trust me at all?” She sniffled again, feeling another flood coming. “Was I so awful to you that you really didn’t care anymore? That’s it, right? I hit you and insulted you and used you and I was terrible, I was awful, and you stopped loving me, and then when I told you it was too late and you didn’t believe me!”

“I said I believed you!”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?!” she wailed.

“Because Angel-- I just didn’t, all right?”

“Angel has nothing to do with you and me!”

That got _him_ yelling again. “Angel had _everything_ to do with you and me! Couldn’t bloody turn around without Angel being shoved in my face, could I? Never missed an opportunity to let me know he was the one you really wanted!”

“I didn’t want Angel!”

“Could have bloody fooled me, with your hello-kisses and your bloody cookie dough!”

“I already told you about the stupid cookies! They’re _your_ stupid cookies! And if I wanted Angel so much, why didn’t I stay in LA?!”

“I don’t bloody know! Why didn’t you?!”

“Because I didn’t want Angel! I wanted you! I loved you! And then you died!”

He shut up.

She sank down to sit on her bed again, legs suddenly weak. “You died,” she repeated dully. “You died, and I was so proud of you, but I couldn’t tell you. I kept wanting to say things to you -- important things, stupid things, bad jokes -- and I’d catch myself turning to where you were supposed to be, and you weren’t there. You were never there.” She angrily wiped away tears -- not that it did any good, they were still coming -- and wrapped both hands around her cell phone. “You were supposed to be there. You weren’t supposed to leave.”

She cried then, huge gasping sobs that choked her, the way she cried when nobody was around, vaguely aware that Spike was making comforting noises over the phone, the kind he’d used to make when she’d broken down in his crypt, back when just living was the worst thing she could imagine doing. After a while the crying faded to embarrassed hiccups; she grabbed the box of tissues and blew her nose.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t have--”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was alive.” Spike sighed; she could almost see him running his fingers through his hair. “Wasn’t possible at first, but then when things changed and it was possible, I talked myself out of it. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Buffy sniffled, fumbling for another tissue. “For a lot of things, but right now mostly that I didn’t… make you feel like I’d want to hear from you.” Her bare feet suddenly felt cold; she rubbed them together, suddenly awkward. “You’d ask me for something solid, and I kept putting you off. And then it was too late.”

“You gave me something solid,” he murmured. “Those last few nights. They were real.”

“But you still didn’t call me.” That came out almost calm, except for having to blow her nose again after.

He swore faintly under his breath. “No, I didn’t. There’s-- well, there was a lot going on.”

“How… um, how did it happen? Was there a spell, or, uh…. I can’t think of anything except spells.” Buffy glanced at her clock; still plenty of time, the buzz of her phone had woken her up early. She crawled back up her bed to snuggle under the covers. “I mean, you were on fire. You burned up.”

“Was the amulet, love. Burned me up, all right, but I guess it didn’t like the taste of me. Spit me right out again, in Angel’s posh executive office.”

“How did--” Buffy glanced at the clock again. “I shouldn’t keep you up. It’s crazy late for you.”

“‘S all right. Now I’m all worked up, need a bit to wind back down.”

Buffy flushed. “Sorry I got you all mad.”

“Didn’t say I was mad.” There went his voice, down into the gutter. “Like Pavlov’s dog, love. You being all righteous and fired up sets off a bloody chain reaction.”

“Oh.” Buffy pulled up the covers tighter around her shoulders. “Um, sorry?” Though she didn’t feel sorry, she felt tingly, frustration of a different kind. He wasn’t the only one whose body was ready for action.

“Think you’ve apologized enough for today.” There was a rustling and a bit of thumping. “So my voice is sexy, is it?”

“Oh, so that was your big takeaway from what just happened?”

“You just rolled your eyes, didn’t you? Can hear it in your voice.”

“Yes, I rolled my eyes, because you’re a big dope.”

“Mmmm.” His voice dipped even lower. “Do it again.”

“You can’t even see me.”

“I can tell.” He chuckled. “You just did it again.”

She had. “I’m still mad at you. I need some answers.”

“You’ll get them, love.” He hesitated. “Can I tell you the whole story tonight? I am a bit knackered, and it’s… there’s a lot.”

“Oh! Yeah. You can rest.” She bit her lip.

“Don’t bloody apologize.” There was a bit more rustling. “Might not even sleep. Need to write a few things down myself, get my head together.”

“Okay.”

“But don’t go yet,” he said quickly.

Buffy looked at her clock again. “I’ve got twenty minutes. Is that enough?”

“Not really, but I’ll make do. What are you wearing?”

“Since when am I the one answering questions?”

“Thought that was for tonight.”

“The big story can wait. Just little questions.”

He wasn’t the only one who could hear an eyeroll through the phone. “Tell me what you’re wearing and I’ll answer a question.”

“Answer a question and I’ll tell you what I’m wearing.”

“All right then. Ask your question.”

“You said you talked yourself out of calling me. Why?”

He sighed heavily. “Not pulling your punches, are you?”

“Have I ever?”

“No.” He laughed. “Well, as I said, when I popped up in Angel’s office, there were… circumstances, made it so I couldn’t call you. Angel wasn’t especially keen on assisting me there, bloody wanker, and when I tried to leave, to go to you, whatever mojo brought me back wouldn’t let me go. So there I was, stuck in Los Angeles, with Angel and his bloody Angelettes for company. You can imagine they gave me a grand welcome.”

“Uh-huh.” Buffy felt a twinge of regret; she’d argued with Angel bitterly when they’d passed through LA after Sunnydale, furious that the amulet had turned out to be a nuclear option, and though they had vaguely reconciled before he’d inexplicably decided being an evil lawyer was a great idea, it hadn’t really felt complete. Wouldn’t ever be, now.

“Anyhow, was a couple of months before circumstances changed, and when they did, I was ready to go. Had my ticket, said my farewells, even gave Angel what for. I was on my way to the docks, and… and then I turned around and went back. Had me a drink, settled in to being Angel’s bloody sidekick.”

“Why?” Buffy curled up on her side, feeling strangely serene, like her explosion earlier had washed her clean.

“Told myself all sorts of things. That you were better off without me. That you thought I’d died a hero, and if I showed up again you’d think less of me, or I’d bollocks things up. But in the end, it was just doubt. Doubt and fear. I popped out of that bloody amulet absolutely sure you wanted me, and in just two months, Angel convinced me I was delusional. And hard as it was to stay away, I knew it would be harder if I showed up, and you didn’t care. At least this way, my last memory of you was… you in love with me.”

“Okay,” Buffy sighed. “I get it. I mean, I want to go back in time and punch you, and Angel, and you again, and then drag you out of Los Angeles by your hair, but I understand doubt and fear.” She wound her free hand into the sheet, pulling it tight.

“Doesn’t seem fair, you punching me twice and only punching Angel once,” Spike grumbled.

“The first punch is the I’m-mad-at-you punch,” Buffy said softly. “The second punch is the I-love-you punch.” She swallowed. “And I’m wearing a tank top. It’s black.”

He gusted out a sigh. “Brilliant. Anything else?”

“I’ll tell you after my next question.”

He laughed. “You’re a hard woman, Slayer.” There was a slight pause. “What was the second punch for, again?”

“Oh, like I haven’t said it every time we’ve talked on the phone this whole week.” She stretched out under the covers. “I’m still mad at you. You have to wait until the end.”

“Suppose that’s fair. You had another question?”

“So you said you appeared in Angel’s office? How did you get there?”

“Post. Took nineteen days, though. Expect they sent it third class.”

“Someone mailed you?” Buffy had a sudden vision of a cartoon crate with holes poked in the top and a “this end up” label.

“The amulet.”

“Okay, that makes a little more sense. Except for the bit where the amulet was at the bottom of a crater.”

“Took out the school, did I?” He sounded smug.

“Took out the whole town, all the way out to the Welcome sign.”

“Did I? Brilliant!”

“Didn’t anybody tell you?”

“Not as such. Used to check the telly, see if there was any news from home. Knew you weren’t there, but had a vague interest. Always wondered why nothing was happening there. Not even weather.” He cleared his throat expectantly. “And that’s another question I’ve answered.”

“All right. I have yoga pants on, too. Grey, with a Cambridge University logo on the hip. Got them when Dawn and I did a campus visit the other day.”

“Mmm. I went to Cambridge.”

“What?”

“I said I went to--”

“I heard you. I am just… expressing dramatic disbelief that you lied through your teeth back when you originally told me your tragic backstory, Mister I’ve-Always-Been-Bad.”

“Was trying to impress you. If I’d known you’d be wearing trousers from my _alma mater_ a few years down the line, I’d have copped to the connection.”

“News flash, Spike. Telling me about your tough childhood pickpocketing on the mean streets of London didn’t impress me either.” She gasped in sudden realization. “Did you just steal that straight out of _Oliver and Company_? You did, didn’t you?”

“Out of the _book_ , yeah. Not the bloody cartoon.”

“Does Dawn know?”

“About Oliver Twist? I bloody hope she’s had some Dickens in her education.”

“About Cambridge.”

“Hasn’t come up.” Spike sniffed.

“You should tell her. She’ll go nuts.”

“I’ll be sure to mention it next time I want my eardrums shattered. Ask me another question.”

“I already told you what I’m wearing.”

“Want to know what color knickers.”

“Oh.” A rush of heat swept out to her fingertips. “Well, you’ll have to answer a really big question to earn that one.”

“Lay on.”

“What are _you_ wearing?”

He laughed, low and rich. “Right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing.”

“Oh. This whole time?”

“Most of it.”

“Oh.”

“Now you.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, resisting the urge to make up something sexier. “They’re white. Plain cotton.”

“You’re breathing faster,” he said suddenly. “Are you-- never mind.”

“A little.” She laughed at herself. “Sorry, still working on not being a coward. Yes, I am thinking naughty thoughts about you.”

Something crashed on Spike’s end of the phone. “Bloody hell. Warn a fellow before you say things like that.”

“Oh, like you warned me before the ‘I’m buck naked’ PSA?”

“That was an honest answer to your cheeky question,” he grumbled. “Bugger.”

“What broke?”

“Just a glass. Had two bloody fingers of the Scotch I’d been saving for a special occasion.”

“Gosh, what’s the occasion?”

“It’s y--”

“Me?” she interrupted, then burst out laughing.

“--you,” he finished, disgruntled.

“Sorry, Spike. That’s totally one of the oldest lines in the book.” She couldn’t help it; she laughed more.

“Well, see if I get ‘buck naked’ for you again.” There was a clinking of glass shards.

“Don’t cut yourself,” Buffy cautioned.

Glass clinked again. “ _Bugger._ You’re a bloody menace.”

“Wait, did you actually cut yourself?”

“Yes, I bloody well cut myself.”

“Aww. Poor Spike.”

He sighed. “Just a scratch. It’ll heal up fast.”

“Pity I’m not there. I could kiss your boo-boo and make it better.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Pity.”

“Okay, listen close.” Buffy put her lips close to her phone and made a smooching noise. “There. All better?”

“Yeah, if I were five,” Spike said drily.

“Well, gosh, what else could I possibly do to make you feel better?” Buffy let her voice dip down lower. Hey, it worked on her.

“Got a few ideas,” he purred. “Perhaps you could start by telling me--”

Buffy’s alarm went off.

“Bugger,” she muttered.

“That’s my bloody line.”

“When in England, swear like the English do,” Buffy said lightly, trying to mask her disappointment.

“Anything you can skip?” Spike asked hopefully.

“Nope. Early morning training session for the new class. It sets a bad example if I get there late.”

“Right then.” He sighed. “I’ll, uh, write some stuff down. For tonight.”

“Yeah. That would be good.” Better, she grudgingly admitted to herself; they still had an awful lot of unfinished business they needed to discuss before things got too steamy. “There’s no field training tonight, though. I can call you right after dinner.”

“All right.”

“Okay.” Buffy sat up straight in bed. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. You’re an adult and you get to make your own choices. And I love you.”

Spike’s voice was low, but serious. “I’m sorry I made you worry. Not used to having people care what happens to me.”

“Well, get used to it.”

“Also,” he continued in a smirky tone of voice, “don’t mind so much if you yell at me, long as we get the cuddles after.”

“Post-yelling snuggles are not guaranteed,” Buffy said severely, but then spoiled it by laughing. “God, we’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously hot,” Spike amended.

Buffy was preparing a coy response when she glanced at her clock again. “Crap. I’ve really gotta go. We need to work on saying goodbye in less than ten minutes.”

“All right. I’ll let you go.” He hesitated, but then rushed on. “Love you, Buffy.”

She’d said it already, but she knew a hint when she heard it. “I love you, too.”

She disconnected before they got sucked in again, setting the phone resolutely aside and heading to her shower.

But as she briskly shampooed her hair and scrubbed off, she thought about Spike, picturing him with a frown on his face as he wrote in a notebook, maybe messing up his hair in agitation, and then she imagined him lying in bed with a glass, a sheet draped over him from the waist down, and then she pictured him without the sheet, feeling anticipation coil in her belly.

Tonight she was going to get her answers.

And who knew what she might get after that?

 

END CHAPTER 2


	3. The Main Course

“So what was Giles’s theory?”

“Huh?” Buffy looked up from the steak she was cutting, momentarily confused. 

“His paper,” Spike clarified. “Why the slayers nowadays are slayers-lite.”

“Oh, that.” Buffy took a moment to chew and swallow her bite; good steak should never wait. “Okay, so Giles had a special advantage, you know, having been privileged both to witness multiple slayers in action prior to the mass awakening, and also to witness a group of Potentials before and after calling.”

“I imagine that’s exactly how Rupert worded it, yeah?” Spike interjected. “Here, give us a taste of that, love.”

“Oh, you know it.” Buffy cut another piece of meat and held it out on her fork for Spike. “You know, you could have gotten your own steak.” 

“Had some blood earlier. A taste is good enough for me.” He grinned playfully. “You should know I’m not all that keen on ‘steaks.’” 

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, that pun’s never been heard before.”

“Tell that to the boss over here.” Spike jerked his head in Faith’s direction. “She’s been asking me all day if I was ready to go to the ‘stakehouse.’”

“This is what I get for trying to be humorously diplomatic,” Faith said through a mouthful of potatoes. “Should I have kept asking you if you were ready for your date with Buffy, instead?”

“She was afraid you’d run for the hills,” Michael noted.

Spike glanced guiltily at Buffy. “Wouldn’t do that,” he grumbled.

“Yes, you would,” Buffy said gently. “So would I. I almost begged the pilot to turn the plane around, halfway across the ocean. When I got off the plane I had twelve texts from Dawn verifying I wasn’t going to bail.”

He stuck his chin out stubbornly. “I’m here, ain’t I?”

“And so am I.” Buffy smiled reassuringly. “Anyhow, what he believes is that the girls who were identified as Potentials all had basically a minimum natural aptitude, partly genetic and partly from the lives they’d lived to that point. The Slayer Force -- for lack of a better word -- would kind of keep an eye on them as they progressed. It wasn’t very forthcoming about who it was tracking, of course, so the Council was only able to identify a few to set up with Watchers for training and observation.”

Faith nodded in understanding. “Which is why you and me got blindsided when we were called. We were on the Force’s radar, but not on the Council’s.”

“Right. So when one slayer died, the Slayer Force would take a look at its whole pool of possibilities, and choose the one that was best for the moment. It wanted someone close to the action, if possible, but it also wanted to pick one it thought could handle the job best. So the one who got chosen had something that made them the best choice for the job. The highest potential, as it were.”

“Think highly of ourselves, do we?” Spike said drily.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Okay, A, you just finished telling me how much I rock, and B, it’s not as if being chosen to be the slayer is like being crowned Miss America. Way fewer evening gowns and a lot more bruises. For all I know, the real reason I got picked when I did is because I’m too stubborn to give up when I totally should. This isn’t about boosting my ego.”

“All right then. Do go on.”

“Anyhow, Giles’s theory is that this is still what’s going on, except now, instead of being put on the Slayer Force’s watch list, everybody who meets that minimum watch list criteria is being given the full activation package. There’s a lot of slayers now who, by the old system, wouldn’t even have been in the running for being called, absent a regional apocalypse or a really awful run of, um, real good days for vamps. They’re still strong, they’re still good, they can still kick a lot of demon ass. But it’s like, I don’t know, if Harvard started accepting the top twenty percent of applicants instead of whatever miniscule percentage they actually admit. The top twenty percent is still awesome, but there’s a wider range of natural ability. And we’re also getting them younger -- not that twelve-year-olds were never called before, poor things, but from statistics Giles thinks most potentials had been on the watch list for a couple years before their number came up.”

“And what does that mean in the field?”

“What it mostly means to me is that Kennedy can suck it,” Faith grinned. “She was identified long before you got called, and got one of the top-ranked Watchers to train her because her family insisted. There’s a reason she still got passed over by the magical slayer choosing hat for you, then Kendra, and then me.”

Spike frowned. “Which one is Kennedy?”

“Willow’s girlfriend,” Buffy and Faith chorused together in matching tones of disgust.

“Now?”

“She was, back in Sunnydale.” Buffy smirked. “Until she figured out she didn’t get any special privileges out of it. She decided after a while that slaying wasn’t her thing, and went back to college. Last I heard she was off in Atlanta, or New York. Some job where she wears a power suit.” 

“She liked to think she was all that,” Faith added. “And she wasn’t bad. Top twenty percent, you know? But she wasn’t near as hot as she thought she was, and she didn’t really take kindly to not being at the  _ very  _ top, where she felt she belonged.”

“Oh, her.” Spike folded his arms. “Still feels off to me, a slayer being able to turn their back on the job.”

“Well, that was part of the point.” Buffy cut another bite of steak. “There’s enough slayers out there now that we don’t need to make them fight. We offer the training and the salary, and provide as much education and protection as we can, because the power also makes them targets, but if they don’t want to fight evil, we’re not going to force them to fight evil. And then the ones that do choose to join us don’t feel so… cursed.”

“What’s interesting to me is how many do join up,” Michael noted. “You’d think more would turn it down, but the vast majority of the girls who are called choose the mission.”

“That’s another part of Giles’s theory,” Buffy said. “That one of the factors that determines potential is a dedication to justice, or to the protection of the weak. So potential slayers are by definition the ones likely to choose it when it is offered.”

“I can see that,” Faith said quietly. “I know when I was fifteen, I wanted justice like nothing else. Shame I didn’t stick with that feeling from the start. In retrospect I was kind of a crappy choice.”

Buffy reached over and set her hand on top of Faith’s, giving it a squeeze. “You were a wonderful choice. Look at what you’ve done here in Cleveland.” She swallowed, suddenly overcome. “Look at what you’ve done for me.”

Faith smiled wryly. “Yeah, they’ll be releasing the Hallmark Original Movie on Lifetime any day now.”

“Oh, I think we can aim higher than that,” Buffy grinned. “HBO, at the very least.”

“As long as it’s not Fox. I’d hate to get cancelled just when I was getting good.”

Michael reached over and took Faith’s other hand. “I can’t imagine why _ I  _ thought the primary qualification for the slayer job was a smart mouth.”

Faith smiled at that, and then sent Spike a sidelong glare. “Anything to add to this sarcastic lovefest, fang-face?”

He shrugged. “Seems to me you’re all out of hands.”

“Oh, you are asking for it tonight!” Faith let go of Buffy’s hand so she could punch Spike lightly in the arm.

Spike looked over at Buffy, smiling slowly. “Perhaps I am, at that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t think I missed that ‘sack of hammers’ crack earlier,” Buffy retorted, glaring theatrically. “I’ve been living in England long enough to know what that means, and you are so going to pay for that when I get you alone.”

“Promise?” he smirked.

Buffy just raised her eyebrows and took another pointed bite of steak.

“Don’t play too rough,” Faith said. “We’ve got a new class of slayers after the holidays. They tend to be less impressed when you show up all bruised.”

“No worries,” Spike said, still looking at Buffy. “You know me. Take a licking, keep on ticking.”

Buffy pretended she wasn’t sizzling at the innuendo. “You’ll get your trainer back in one piece.” She made a show of gazing thoughtfully at her steak knife. “More or less.”

“Eat your steak, Slayer,” Spike growled.

“I’m eating, I’m eating.” She wrapped her lips around her fork on the next bite, sucking lightly. “Mmm.“

“Fascinating as your foreplay is, let me remind you that Michael and I are still here,” Faith grinned. “I think a change of subject is in order.”

“We could always play ‘Never Have I Ever,’” Buffy said slyly, digging into her mashed potatoes.

Faith snorted out a laugh. “Oh, I’m thinking no. Not after the last time.” 

Buffy snickered. “God, when was that?”

“Right before I left London. We’d had that big shakedown, when some of the old guard tried to reassert some of the crappier of the old rules. So, June? July?”

“Yeah. I remember it was really hot. And we’d gone out to some -- as Giles put it -- ‘dodgy pub’ to celebrate, rented the back room for the night. Xander kept doing his impression of Wesley’s father--” 

Faith deepened her voice, putting on a snooty English accent. “‘You ruffians and juvenile delinquents think you have won the day! But I will return the Watcher’s Council to its former glory, or my name isn’t Roger Wyndam-Price!’”

“Bloody hell, that’s an awful accent,” Spike muttered, grinning. “Don’t quit your day job.” 

“Yeah, well, Xander’s was worse.”

“Spot on for pomposity, though.” Spike took a drink of his beer. “I’ve met Mr. Wyndam-Price. Though I heard later on it was a cyborg version. Not sure if that meant he was more pompous, or less.”

Buffy took a last bite of her potatoes and set her napkin on her plate, moving it aside so she could reach out for Spike’s hand again. He took it right away this time. “Anyhow, somehow we started up with ‘Never Have I Ever’ figuring out just how delinquent we’d all been as juveniles. The drinking game version, because we were all feeling stupid that night. So we started out with shoplifting -- show of hands here? Never shoplifted?” 

Michael raised his hand, but everybody else’s stayed down; Spike gave Buffy a funny look; she squeezed his hand.

“Yeah, that was about how it went then, too. Except with tequila. And then we moved on to things like property damage, breaking and entering, hacking into government files -- Willow got burned on that one big time -- and so on. Misdemeanors, mostly. But, well, it didn’t take long before we were all really, really drunk. And then somehow we upped the ante. Starting talking felonies. And I mean  _ talking. _ ”

“ _ In vino veritas? _ ” Spike murmured.

“Yep.” Buffy rolled her eyes at Spike’s raised eyebrows. “Yes, I’ve learned a few Latin phrases. So sue me.”

“We had to start adding qualifiers,” Faith continued. “Like, does it count if you were possessed? Or influenced by magic? If one of us had cast the spell and another had done the deed, who had to take the drink? What about collateral damage -- like when something one of us did injured or killed an innocent citizen of Sunnydale? And so on.”

“And, well, there was a whiteboard in the room, because I guess it’s really popular for small businesses who don’t have their own conference rooms to rent it for meetings, and Willow started keeping score. And we added in other people we knew, as kind of a control group. Anya, Giles… Angel.” Buffy shifted in her chair, taking Spike’s hand more firmly. “It was funny, because we were all drunk, but we all knew it wasn’t actually funny, you know?”

“Was I on the board?” Spike took a swig of his beer.

“Yep. I insisted, once I saw the way things were going.” Buffy lifted her margarita in a salute.

He saluted her back with his bottle, bemused. “Can’t believe I didn’t win.”

“That was one of the qualifiers,” Faith said. “Whether having a soul or not mattered. After a long debate -- a long, very drunken debate, mind you -- it was the general consensus that demons, including vampires-with-no-souls, were no more immoral than, say, sentient man-eating tigers, and so you and Angel only accrued points in the competition for actions taken when you had a soul.”

“Mighty generous of you.”

“It wasn’t a new rule,” Buffy said with a casual shrug. “We’d given Angel a pass for all sorts of past crimes and sins, back in Sunnydale. This was just applying that standard more evenly.” 

“By the time we were done, we’d all sobered up enough to look at the board and realize just how not-funny it was. Wasn’t one of us didn’t have enough points to choke a horse.” Faith leaned over and clinked her beer bottle against Spike’s. “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but you weren’t even in the running for the top spot.”

“And when we were about to leave, Xander looked at the board one last time and said, ‘Holy mother of Murgatroyd, we  _ are  _ ruffians and juvenile delinquents.’”

“Except he said it in his Roger W-P voice.” Faith drew herself up. “‘I say, we  _ are _ ruffians and juvenile delinquents, by Jove!’”

Buffy snorted out a laugh, trying to stifle it --  _ way to impress your date, Buffy!  _ \-- but when she stole a glance at Spike, he was looking at her with a weird expression on his face. Not disgust. What look was that? It was like he didn’t even recognize her, almost. Was that good?

“Anyhow, I think I had the most points,” Faith said, though her voice wasn’t proud. 

“I thought it was me. Or maybe Willow?” Buffy frowned. “Not that it was winning. More of… facing up to our worst selves, so we could work on being our best selves. But yeah, in retrospect I don’t think I could ever play that game again.”

“Well, I’m the only one at the table currently who’s actually murdered someone.” Faith held up a forestalling finger. “We’ve already had the no-soul-no-points discussion, Spike. Not letting you off the hook, just saying it’s not the same as making the choice to murder someone, with your soul screaming no.”

Buffy met Spike’s guarded eyes, trying to read his expression. “I tried. I tried to murder you, Faith. Put you in a coma.”

Faith laughed bitterly. “Way I was at the time, it was like putting down a mad dog.”

“No, it was murder. It even felt like murder to me.” Buffy took another sip of her margarita, letting the salt sting her lips. “I knew I was going to kill you, and I meant to do it, and it wasn’t justice or anything noble. It was me getting revenge. At the time, I justified it to myself, told myself you deserved it, that it was to save Angel, but it wasn’t good. It was all selfishness.”

Faith waved Buffy’s guilt away. “Well, hands up from anyone at the table who hasn’t  _ tried _ to kill someone else at the table.”

Not one hand went up. 

She rolled her eyes. “The time you made me steak tartare and I got food poisoning doesn’t count, Michael.”

“I provided logistical support for the wetworks team that was sent to take you out back in 2000,” he said, chin jutting out a bit. “It was one of my first jobs for the Council. Under orders, but it counts.”

“Really?” Faith eyed Michael speculatively over the rim of her drink. “Badass.”

“I didn’t read your file until after.” He took his own drink, calm. “It was, in fact, the last time I followed orders before reading the file.” 

Faith shifted down in her chair; from the way Michael looked at her, arrested and focused, Buffy would bet there was some serious footsie going on. Possibly not involving just feet.

Her own feet were close to Spike’s but not touching, but she was wearing boots that she couldn’t just kick off; she’d need to unzip them to start, and then… well, she didn’t think it was a good idea. 

And then she kicked herself with her figurative stompy boots. After months of phone flirting and a cross-Atlantic flight, with just about everyone she knew acting as matchmakers, was she going to just keep on being a coward?

What had she said, that last night in Sunnydale?  _ Are you ready to be strong? _

Well, was she?

Casually confirming that their almost-gone drinks were in safe locations -- tipping could only make up for so many cleanups -- she stretched out her leg, casting about until her ankle came up against his. When he started, she smiled and stroked the toe of her boot up his calf, meeting his eyes. 

He narrowed his gaze, a slow smile creeping across his face, and shifted his grip on her hand, sliding his thumb around to trace circles on her palm.

Buffy narrowed her own eyes, stroking her fingers sensually across the back of his hand.

His smile turned into a feral grin and he lifted her hand, brushing his lips across her wrist.

Buffy managed to turn her gasp into a yawn. “Wow. Sorry guys. Jet lag.”

“Uh-huh.” Faith raised her eyebrows, clearly not fooled. “Well, B, if you’re wiped, we can call it a night.” She stood up, dropping her napkin on her plate. “I’m gonna powder my nose. Care to join me?”

Buffy hesitated, because she really wanted to keep flirting with Spike, get him good and worked up before they left, but Faith was giving her A Look, so clearly this wasn’t just about the perils of shiny skin. “Yeah. Back in a bit, guys.” She squeezed Spike’s hand one more time and followed Faith.

“Shame they don’t have cold showers in here,” Faith snickered as the restroom door closed behind them. “I’ve got a twenty-minute drive back to HQ, with tonight’s traffic.”

“Sorry,” Buffy laughed.

“No, you’re not.” Faith peered at herself in the mirror, pulling a lipstick out of her purse. “And you shouldn’t be. Michael’s got a competitive streak; tonight should be a blast, once we break free of the game-day crowd.” She smacked her lips, and then traded the lipstick for a small red envelope that she held out to Buffy. “Here.”

Buffy slipped her finger under the flap, breaking the seal. Inside was a hotel keycard.

“I said you had a room.” Faith met Buffy’s eyes in the mirror, grinning smugly.

Buffy looked at the keycard blankly. “I already have a hotel.” This was getting to be a habit, people randomly handing her things out of the blue.

“Not like this, you don’t,” Faith said with a wink. “What  _ you  _ have is what the WC’s expense account wants. Mid-range family hotel, one queen-sized bed, with a continental breakfast and HBO.” Faith turned around, leaning casually against the marble counter. “But the girls and I, we broke open our piggy banks so you could have this.” She flicked the keycard in Buffy’s hand. “Honeymoon suite at the Metropolitan. Three nights, with a late checkout already covered. Room service included.”

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Say, ‘of course I’ll tell you all about the hot sex later,’” Faith teased.

Buffy looked away. “If there is any. I mean, this is the first time we’ve been in the same place since… since Sunnydale.”

Faith lifted her eyebrows. “After that meal? And the way you two have been burning up the airwaves? I give you five minutes before you’re screaming his name.”

“We haven’t talked _ that  _ much,” Buffy hedged.

“You are aware that Spike uses a corporate phone? And that I, as head of the slayers in Cleveland, get a report on usage of every cell phone in my purview? He spends more time talking to you than he does patrolling, and at the same time has logged more patrolling hours than any slayer under my command.” She grinned wickedly. “Also, all his calls are recorded for training purposes. Guess who gets to listen to them?”

Buffy could feel her face turning white. “Oh, god.”

“I have to admit, he has a really sexy voice. Especially when it dips down low. I’d be making those noises, too, if he was saying those things to me.”

“Oh,  _ god! _ ” Buffy buried her face in her hands.

A few moments later, Faith’s hand rested on her shoulder. “I’m just yanking your chain, B. I don’t listen to your calls. I was lying about recording them, even. But I guessed right, didn’t I?” Faith’s hand tightened. “You’ve been talking about more than tactics and techniques.”

Buffy glared up at Faith. “Maybe a little.”

“I’m guessing a lot.” Faith took both of her shoulders in her hands then, turning Buffy to face her. “Look, I know you’ve got a whole matched set of baggage, both of you. Samsonite, even. But you also have… you have something solid underneath. Something most people would kill for. Don’t let it slip away because of pride, or shame, or obligations.” She smiled then, wryly. “It’s easy to claim to deserve something, but the fact is, you do deserve this. You told me I deserve to be loved. If it’s true for me, it’s really fucking true for you.”

Buffy grabbed Faith in a quick hug. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Buffy looked at the keycard in her hand, smiling despite herself. “Honeymoon suite, you said?”

“Champagne, chocolates, strawberries, hot tub…” Faith grinned. “I was told the walls are extremely soundproof.”

“Oh.” Buffy felt her cheeks turning red again. “That’s… that’s good.”

She stepped out of the bathroom and looked across the room at Spike; he turned and met her eyes, questioning, and she smiled, feeling her heartbeat accelerate.

Yeah, soundproof was definitely good.

*

They’d been in a holding pattern for weeks, since the day Buffy had finally yelled at him, and she was terrified.

For some reason, she’d thought that things would flow naturally, that once they made it past the initial awkwardness and said some of the things that needed to be said, once they’d shared enough, they would segue smoothly into… other things. That they’d be, well, a couple.

Instead, it was like they were playing an asinine game of Chicken.

Their nightly phone calls would start off all right. Comfortable small talk, light flirting, romantic declarations. All that was good. Sometimes they started off with a little yelling, or got there along the way, but that was actually good, too; they were being honest, not holding anything back emotionally, and they still had a lot to work through. Either way, eventually the conversations would slide a little more intimate --  _ what are you wearing? _ and  _ wish you were here,  _ and Buffy would snuggle up in her bed in anticipation of Spike’s sexy voice dipping deeper and deeper into innuendo until he finally just said it, said what he was thinking of doing with her, so she could say it back, and maybe together they could relieve some of the frustration that had been building this whole time.

Except he never did. He’d allude and suggest and insinuate, and then when she was all worked up, he’d mumble something about having to go to his briefing -- sometimes a whole hour before the briefing was scheduled to start! She’d checked with Faith! -- and they’d draw back, say their romantic goodbyes, and hang up. 

And it wasn’t just him. She’d tried taking the initiative, leading him down a path of naughty thoughts, but just when she had him on the hook, when she could tell he was practically salivating, she’d be overcome with terror and pull back.

Cowards, the both of them.

Well, that was going to end tonight.

Because she was a coward, Buffy started it via text.

_ Spike? Are you awake? _

_ Working on it. You calling in a bit here? I’ll be up soon. _

_ Yes.  _ Buffy took a deep breath and sent her next message. _ I want to have phone sex tonight. _

He didn’t reply; Buffy waited so long that she was actually shaking with fear before sending a followup.  _ Spike? Did you get my last message? _

_ Yeah _ , he replied quickly.

_ So can we? _

There was a long pause.  _ I am trying to suss out exactly what you mean. _

_ Phone sex. We talk on the phone, and pretend we’re together, and you say what you want to do, and I say what I want to do. _ She hesitated before sending her next message, but she’d already come this far, there was no turning back now.  _ And we touch ourselves and pretend it’s us together. I want to, if it’s okay with you. _

There was another long pause before his reply came.  _ Call me. I’m definitely awake now. _

She hit the call button immediately, before she could second-guess herself. He picked up just as quickly.

“Have I ever mentioned that you’re a bloody menace?” he growled.

“Got your attention, didn’t I?”

“So what brought this on all of a sudden?”

She sat on the edge of her bed. “It’s not sudden. I, uh, I’ve wanted to for a while.”

“Since when?”

She bit her lip. “Chocolate chip cookies.” When he remained silent, she clarified. “The first night. You were talking about chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven, and your tongue, and--”

“I remember. Could hardly move and all I was thinking about was making you hot.”

“It worked. But it was kind of a bad time, with you being all, um, extra-crispy.”

“Fair enough.” He sighed, long and easy, like he was stretching. 

“Is now a good time?”

“Fuck, yeah,” he drawled, and just like that she was trembling. “Not on duty tonight. But I expect you knew that.”

She laughed. “I did check your schedule with Faith earlier in the week.”

“That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“The pack of cigarettes the boss-lady handed me last night after patrol. ‘Think you’ll be needing these,’ she said.”

Buffy felt her cheeks turn pink. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

“Expect she sussed it out on her own.”

“Or maybe she thought you needed them because I was going to stress you out.” God, she hoped she wasn’t as transparent as all that. Not that Faith didn’t know her history with Spike, but she didn’t want to put out an all-points bulletin, either.

He laughed. “Maybe.”

Buffy bit her lip again. “So. Um. I’ve never done this. How do we start?”

“Bugger if I know. Could just talk for a bit, ease into it.” 

It was tempting to have a reprieve from the butterflies in her stomach, but Buffy steeled herself. “No, I want to do it now.” She took a deep breath. “What are you wearing?”

“Ah, classic opener,” Spike purred. “You woke me up, so I’m still in bed wearing my jim-jams.”

Buffy snorted laughter, caught by surprise. “You wear pajamas now?”

“Orders from on high after one of the newbies busted in to get me in an emergency, caught a peek of my arse.” He shifted his voice up a register, mimicking Faith’s Boston accent. “‘I don’t care how you like to sleep! You’re living in the girls’ dorm now and you need to cover up your pasty behind!’” He shifted back to his own voice. “Though I’m actually down in the cellar, in an old storage room. The girls’ rooms are upstairs.”

Buffy laughed. “All right then. What color? Black? Red?”

“Royal blue silk,” he said smugly. “And I’m only wearing the trousers.”

“Oh.” Buffy eased back on the bed, her stomach trembling. “Silk?”

“Next best thing to naked. It’s almost as soft as your skin.”

“Mmm. Are you under the covers?”

“Not anymore. I’m sitting, got my back propped up on pillows.” He sighed again, luxuriously. “And what are you wearing, love?”

“I just got in from patrol,” she said softly. “I’m still dressed in my fighting clothes. Red leather pants, black tank top, black jacket. I still have my boots on.” She closed her eyes, imagining Spike lounging on her bed in nothing but blue silk pajama bottoms. No time like the present to start. “I walk in the door, tired and bruised and sweaty, and when I see you in my bed I just stop and look.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said in a voice like dark chocolate.

“I was thinking of you the whole time I patrolled,” she said softly. “I had plans. I knew that as soon as I got home I was going to… going to make love to you.”

“Did you, now?” he asked in a faint voice. 

“Mm-hmm. It was a hard patrol. I took out a whole nest of vamps that was holed up in an abandoned gas station in Islington. I’m all sweaty and covered in dust... and I’m really, really turned on. I want you, Spike.” She rolled onto her side, curling in around the phone. “Do you want me?”

“Yes,” he breathed gustily. 

“Take my boots off.”

He chuckled. “I crawl down to the foot of the bed and sit so you can put your foot on my chest. Zipper, yeah?”

Buffy’s breath was starting to come faster. “Yeah.”

“I unzip the boot slowly, caressing your leg, and slip it off, stroking the bottom of your foot. Do your feet hurt?”

Buffy slipped one of her boots off, pretending it was his fingers caressing the arch. “A little. But you can rub them later. After.”

“All right then. Other foot.” He paused briefly. “I don’t unzip this one yet. Gonna run my hand up your leg, up the inside of your thigh, to your sweet quim. Stroke you through the leather.”

“Oh.” That was unexpected.

“Are you doing it?”

“Um, yeah.” Buffy reached down and ran her hand up the inside of her leg, falling back on her bed again as she reached the apex, stroking up the leather seam at the center. “Oh!” God, she’d known she was turned on, but she hadn’t realized just how sensitized she already was, even through the double layer of leather and cotton.

“There’s my girl,” he crooned. “Don’t stop. I want you to come right here. I’m still stroking you, rubbing the leather against you. Want to hear your voice when you come.”

“God. Keep… keep talking.” Buffy stroked and stroked, pumping her hips against her hand, gasping and whimpering, while Spike’s low, urgent voice filled her ears.

“Can feel your heat through the leather, can’t I? That’s it. God. Can’t wait to taste you, feel you explode on my tongue. Never forget what you taste like, like bloody heaven. Get you so hot and wet, can’t wait to be inside you, fuck you just the way you like it, hard and long, want you to ride me, fuck me into the floor, fuck till we’re both screaming--” 

That sent her over the edge; Buffy moaned as she peaked, fingers slowing to a lazy caress.

“Ah, you’re beautiful when you come.” She could almost see his smug grin. “ _ Now _ I take off your other boot.”

“That escalated fast,” Buffy laughed shakily, fingers trembling on her boot’s zipper.

“We tend to,” Spike agreed. 

That sent a shudder of something other than desire through her, they had to -- no. After. They’d talk about it after.

“My turn,” she said instead, kicking her boot across the room. “You bought those silk pajamas for me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said, voice quivering.

“You’re sitting on the end of the bed. I… I fall to my knees so I can see better.”

“God.”

Buffy swallowed, suddenly nervous again. “I… I reach out and trace you through the silk. Are you hard?”

He laughed brokenly. “Bloody hell. Yeah.”

His shuddering voice gave her courage. “I don’t think you’re quite hard enough, so I want to tease you a little first. I take just one finger and trace, up and down, then around the tip, tracing the ridges and curves, stroking the silk against you. Then I curl my hand around you, wrapping the silk tight.”

He made a kind of strangled half-laugh-half-gasp.

“I slide my hand up and down, slowly, long thorough strokes, letting my fingers trace your shape, letting the silk slide along you. And then, when I think you’re as hard as I can make you, I’m going to lean in and lick your cock, all covered in silk, from bottom to top.

He was swearing now, little gasps of curses, and the vision of him pleasuring herself to her words made her feel dizzy with power and desire.

“I lick you again, and again. You taste so good, and the feel of you under my tongue is so fantastic. The next lick, when I get to the end, I open my mouth and take you inside, as much as the silk will let me, and I suck.” She stopped talking and hummed in pleasure. “Mmm.”

“I run my hands through your hair,” he whispered between grunts. “ _ Fuck _ , Slayer.”

“The silk doesn’t taste as good as just you,” Buffy laughed throatily. “But I know I’ll get to taste you as much as I want later. Right now, though, I’m through playing. I stand up in front of you and I take off my jacket.” Dreamily, she started to strip along with her words, awkwardly shifting the phone from hand to hand. “Then I pull off my tank top. I’m not wearing a bra.”

“Are your nipples hard?”

Buffy looked down. “Yes. They’re hard and red, and so sensitive.” She wrapped her free hand around one, gasping. “I’m touching them now. I want your mouth on them, but not yet. You have to wait.”

“Bugger.”

“I’m taking off my pants.” She shimmied them off her hips, stepping out of them. “I’m wearing a thong. Black cotton.”

“Imagine it’s soaked,” Spike groaned.

“Oh, yeah.” Buffy hooked her thumb in the waistband, peeling her thong down her leg. “But I’m taking it off now, too. I’m naked now.”

“Then I--”

“Don’t take your pants off,” Buffy said quickly. “Not yet. Um, hang on a sec.” Biting her lip, she rushed over to her dresser, digging in her top drawer until she found a silk scarf; she hurriedly slipped beneath the covers, the sheets smooth against her bare skin. 

“I’m hanging on,” Spike growled.

“Sorry!” Buffy heaved a deep breath. “I, um, sit on your lap, um, kneel and, um, straddle your…” She trailed off, trying to think how to word it. 

“Your hot quim against my cock?” Spike suggested. “Nothing but silk between us?”

“Yeah.” Buffy laughed nervously. “That’s what I want.” She pressed the silk scarf between her legs, rubbing slowly. “I’m still so wet, the silk is already drenched. I’m rubbing against you slowly, back and forth, feeling all your contours through the wet silk. You feel so good… oh…” The feel of her fingers covered in silk was amazing, and as she stroked and imagined herself writhing against Spike, pictured his face naked with desire, a sudden orgasm made her squeak. “Oh!”

“Fuck. Did you just come again, Slayer?”

“Maybe.” She kept stroking. “But I’m not stopping. I love the feel of the silk, the feel of you under the silk, so hard against me. I’m moving faster, and faster. I need your hands on my breasts, your mouth.”  She pinched and plucked at her own breasts with her free hand. Her breath was hitching; she was close again. “But it’s not enough. I want you inside me,” she gasped out. “I push your pants down out of the way and push you back down on the bed and I take you inside.” She dropped the silk and thrust her fingers inside herself, crying out, and Spike’s hiss of pleasure in her ear made her feel delirious. “Oh, god! Spike, fuck me. Please!” She pressed her thumb to her clit and pumped her fingers in and out, grunting with each thrust, hearing Spike grunt in time with her.

“Fuck, Slayer, I’m going to--”

“Yes!” she urged, panting. “I want you to come inside me. God, please!” She spasmed in release as Spike swore on the other end of the phone, his voice drenched in ecstasy.

She lay there in her bed, panting, slowly coming to awareness that she was still stroking herself, gently, that her body was quivering with the aftereffects of the best orgasm she’d had in years, and that she was definitely going to need to change her sheets.

“Wow,” she finally managed. “That was, um, way better than doing it alone.”

He laughed. “Still rather have you here.”

“Yeah.” That niggling feeling in the back of her head came back, and she sighed and wiped her hand off on the silk scarf that was twisted under her.

“I know that sigh,” Spike murmured. “What’s wrong?”

“I want to see you,” Buffy replied, shifting over to a less-damp part of her bed. “But I’m also scared to see you. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I get that. But I get the feeling you’ve got more on your mind than when I was fretting about spoiling my grand exit.”

“I guess I do.” Buffy took a deep breath, than said it. “What if… what if we finally get together and it’s not… good. It doesn’t work, it’s not what we expected.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Okay, hear me out.” Buffy took a deep breath, trying to quell her shaking. “So, back when we… when we used to have sex, it was… it was really, really good. I pretended I was disgusted by the things we were doing, but even so I can’t even describe how good they felt. Like now-I-understand-the-Trojan-War good.”

“No argument there.” Spike’s voice was smug, but she could hear the question under it.

“I know. You told me how good it was for you, all the time. You said I was an animal, that I made it hurt in all the right places….” She trailed off, trying to find the right words.

When Spike spoke, his voice sounded repentant. “Slayer, I--” 

“No, don’t apologize. Let me finish. Back then, I didn’t want to hear those things, I didn’t want to admit to them. The person I was, when I was in bed with you, wasn’t who I thought I was supposed to be, and I was ashamed. I’m… I’m not ashamed any more. What we did together was mutual, and it was caring, and it was generous.  _ You  _ were generous. You always wanted to… to please me, more than you wanted to take pleasure. I didn’t appreciate it then, but I do now.”

He made a noise like he wanted to say something but managed to stifle it.

She took another deep breath. “The problem is, back then, I was also… I was having some issues. You know. Depression, self-loathing. I wanted to die. And you… didn’t have your soul yet. You’d been shades of grey for a long time, and I… I honor you for it, but you were still a demon reaching towards the light. We were both living on the edge of the darkness, and sometimes tumbling over.”

Spike started to say something again, probably an apology of some sort, but she shushed him.  

“No, listen. The people we are now, you and I… we’re not who we were then. What if… what if that darkness is what made it good? What if I’m not the ‘animal’ I was? What if your soul has taken away that… that instinct to push me past the limits of ecstasy? I’m scared, Spike. I’m scared we’re going to get back together and try to recapture that feeling, and maybe it’s gone forever, like the people we were then.” She swallowed, mouth dry. “I’m afraid we’re not going to be, um, sexually compatible anymore, and that I’m going to disappoint you.”

“Speech done, Slayer?” Spike said drily.

“Uh-huh.”

“All right. First off, that’s bollocks. The only way you could disappoint me is by not showing up.”

“Yes, but--”

“But secondly, let’s say you’re right. Let’s say souled-up Spike doesn’t push your buttons just right, that non-clinically-depressed Buffy doesn’t get my motor running the way you used to. Do you think I’m going to love you less because we aren’t shagging like crazed weasels for five hours straight?”

She smiled tearily at the reminder. “No.”

“Or let’s hypothesize further. What if when I got burned by the sun, it took a bit more off me than the top layer of skin. If I were a eunuch, would you still love me?”

Buffy didn’t leap into denial, thinking carefully before she answered. “Yeah. I’d miss the sex, but I’d still want you to be my… to be with me.”

“So here’s my answer. I’m not in this with you just because you fuck like Aphrodite. I’m in this to be with you, the woman I love. If what pleases you now is different, then I want to learn that. If I’ve changed just as much, I can’t wait for you to figure out the new buttons to push. And if in the end we can’t find a way to please each other, if we’re still leaving each other unsatisfied, we’ll talk, and we’ll find a bloody way around that, too. I’m not giving  _ you _ up over something as paltry as sex.” He paused briefly. “Not that I don’t enjoy the sex.”

“No, um, sex is still good. I still really want to have sex.”

“Right. Just saying it isn’t everything, and it isn’t all there is to us.”

Buffy laughed. “All right. Buffy being paranoid.”

“Not at all, love,” His voice dipped lower, more intimate. “Makes my heart shiver, just knowing how much you want  _ us  _ to work out right this time. And I’m just as bad some nights, though I worry more about squaring my past with the present and future.”

“Spike, you know I--”

“Not looking for reassurance, love,” Spike said quickly. “Most days I’m perfectly happy to accept my lot in life, getting paid to kill baddies and having the woman I love love me back.” His voice dipped down low again. “In any case, I think we have better things to discuss.”

“Oh, do we?” Buffy asked archly. “Like what?”

“Like that lovely little toy you’ve got in your bedside table drawer.”

She gasped. “How did you know--?” 

“Didn’t know,” he said smugly. “But I know you. No bloody way you made it this long single without something to… take the edge off.”

She could not argue with that. “So what exactly is it about my vibrator we need to discuss?”

She could feel his grin in his voice. “Was thinking if you got it out, I might make a few suggestions.” His voice was like silk. “Want to hear you come again, pet. And then again after that. I’ve got all night, after all. And plenty of cigarettes.”

She made him burn through the whole pack.

END CHAPTER 3


	4. Dessert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: You guys have all been such troupers, making it through 3 chapters and more than 20,000 words of aggravated UST and Spuffy being apart. They’re not apart any more. *throws the U out the window* Hope you enjoy your fluffy dessert!
> 
> Thanks again to Sigyn for betaing!

When they got out to the sidewalk, there was a limousine pulled up to the curb, sleek and black, white-gloved driver standing patiently attentive; Buffy vaguely wondered who the VIP was as she turned and headed towards the parking lot at the side of the restaurant, bag rolling behind her. “You’ve got a car, right? I took a taxi here.”

“As a matter of fact, I do have a car,” Faith drawled. “But you’ve got other transportation.” When Buffy turned in confusion, Faith jerked her thumb at the limo.

“Oh, you’re kidding,” Buffy laughed. 

“Nope. You’re heading to the best hotel in town, and you’re doing it in style.”

The driver stepped forward then. “May I take your bag, Miss Summers?” He looked kind of like Tom Selleck, if a bit squishier around the middle, mustache flecked with grey. 

“Oh. Um, yeah. Please.”

“Buffy, this is George.” Faith held up her hand for a high-five. “George, how’s the wife and kids?”

“Better,” he said with a smile, high-fiving her back. “Stacy’s been out of the hospital a week now, and the kids are back in school.” He smiled again at Buffy, courteously taking her bag and turning to stow it on the limousine’s front seat.

“Saved him and his family from a gang of vamps a couple weeks back,” Faith murmured in an aside. “Spike was a big part of that one, managed to keep the kids safe, though George’s wife got hurt bad. We saved her in the end, though. George offered us a huge discount for tonight.” She winked. “Of course, I’m tipping him enough to get it back to his full fee, plus. Have I mentioned I’m liking this gainful-employment thing? Feels good to spread cash around where it’s needed. Not bad for someone who finished high school in prison.”

Michael was shaking Spike’s hand further down the sidewalk; Buffy leaned in and whispered, “Does George know Spike’s a vampire?”

“Yep. He’d be grateful to a Fyarl demon if they’d saved his family.” Faith grinned. “And don’t worry, he’s not going to be offended that the privacy screen is up the whole trip. He’s totally on board with the transAtlantic romance.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t do anything to embarrass him,” Buffy demurred. “I figured we’d have a nice, relaxing drive, maybe pop that champagne when we get back to the hotel, not rush anything….”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Yeah right. To reiterate, I give you five minutes. I’d put money on it, but Michael refused to take the bet. Something about cider in his ear.” She shrugged. “I think that’s from a musical? Most of his quotes are. We’ve gone to a few, and he sings showtunes in the shower sometimes.” She smiled reminiscently. “It’s weirdly sexy.”

“Paychecks and musical theatre? What has this life done to you?” Buffy teased.

“I know, I sometimes wake up in the morning and think,  _ what the hell is going on? Who the hell am I? _ But it’s good. We all have to grow up sometime. Just, you know, not too much.” She punched Buffy on the arm. “So you go have a good time with your slightly-grown-up Lost Boy. We’ll see you in a few days, give you the grand tour, do something else official.”

Buffy enfolded Faith in a hug. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Faith said, hugging back. “Merry Christmas.” Buffy moved on to hug Michael while Spike got his hug from Faith, and then George handed them into the back of the limousine, murmuring information to Buffy as she entered.

Buffy scanned the interior. “I have never been in one of these.” There was a bench seat across the very back and a long arched couch along one side of the long cabin, with what looked like real leather upholstery, all smooth and black, a minibar filling up the other side. Buffy glanced behind her and noticed the privacy screen was already in place, blushing a little at the implication.

“So, what’s the plan?” Spike settled into the cozy bench seat at the back, stretching his legs out.

Buffy nestled comfortably into the crook of his arm, rubbing her cheek against the leather of his duster. “Well, Faith said there’s a welcome basket at the hotel, and supposedly champagne all set up and waiting. I figured we’d go get settled in, maybe drink a toast. Then… I don’t want to rush things, but I really want to make love.” The limo started to accelerate. “After that, I guess just hang out and talk. It’ll be nice to do it in person.”

“All right. Sounds like an excellent plan. Very romantic.” Spike stroked her shoulder. “How long did the fellow up front say the drive would be?”

“Twenty minutes. Maybe longer. Said there’s a Cavaliers game letting out right now.”

“Hmm.”

Buffy wasn’t certain if she turned her head first or if he did, but they met in the middle, lips brushing in a sweet tender kiss, and  _ oh _ . She hadn’t forgotten how his lips felt, soft and hard at the same time, or the smoky flavor of his mouth, but the sweet memory was nothing like the reality. She shifted closer to savor the sensation, head swimming --  _ I’m kissing Spike, I’m finally kissing Spike  _ \-- and he groaned deep in the back of his throat, lips parting, and she took the invitation, delving her tongue in to glide lazily against his, except oh, she didn’t feel lazy anymore, she felt hot as lava, her hands coming up to dig into Spike’s hair, and a beat later they were frantic, lips and teeth clashing desperately, and she threw her leg across Spike, straddling his lap.

“I can’t wait that long,” she gasped between kisses, hiking her skirt up so she could grind against him. “Now. I need you now!”

He growled and ground right back, one hand sliding around to the small of her back, the other slipping between them, rubbing at her swollen clit through her panties. She let out a strangled cry at the contact.

“Been wanting to fuck you since you walked in the bloody door,” he said, voice as desperate as she felt. “Even before you decided to drive me ‘round the bloody bend licking your fork every twelve seconds.”

Buffy threw her head back so he could kiss her throat as she rubbed against the double friction, his cock hard under denim, his finger relentless through the cotton. “Says the guy with a voice like a lethal weapon.”

“The way you drank that bloody margarita,” he groaned. “Your lips, your smile--”

“The way you touched my hand,” Buffy gasped, moving faster. “God, when you kissed my wrist--” She arched back in ecstasy as she came, chanting his name.

“Bloody hell,” he breathed into her collarbone.

“You said it,” she gasped. She reached down, fumbling at his belt. “Rip them off. My panties.”

He laughed darkly and slid his fingers into the front of her panties; she heaved up and he yanked and the panties ripped at the seams -- he tossed them aside -- and she stayed up while she got his zipper down, and he bucked up enough to shove his jeans halfway down his thighs while she curved her hand around his cock, sighing.

“All this for me?” she laughed shakily, sliding her wet pussy all along his length.

“All yours,” he growled, and then she angled him with her hand so he could thrust inside her, and they both shouted as he slid deep, his fingers digging into her hips as they started to move. Spike swore and slid down a bit on the seat, pumping up into her frantically.

Buffy tucked her knees up so she could use her feet to move, clutching at his shoulders as she desperately matched his thrusts. The motion of the limo as it bumped and swayed and turned added a maddening unpredictability to the sensations; she could hear the muffled rush of traffic outside, in counterpoint to the wet rhythm of their fucking. Buffy’s own voice mingled with Spike’s as they let loose, grunting and moaning each time they came together.

“You’re so fucking wet,” he bit out, shoving her shirt up to her armpits and roughly palming her breasts through her lace bra.

“I-- god! -- can’t imagine why,” Buffy moaned, grabbing the leather seat back for more leverage. “It’s not like you just spent an hour or so seducing me.” A horn sounded close outside the limo, and she felt suddenly exposed --  _ can they tell from outside? Can they hear us? Can the other drivers tell we’re in here fucking? Can they tell I’m finally fucking Spike? _ \-- and the thought sent a rush of heat from the tip of her head down to her toes and she convulsed around him, legs spasming, and he swore and thrust up into her harder, so before she had a chance to come down she was already peaking again, sharp and piercing, and then his hands curled around her back and up over her shoulders, pulling her hard into his thrusts, and he shouted out his release into her chest, falling back against the seat. She went with him, kissing his throat and his shoulders and the top of his head, still shaking like a leaf.

When words existed again, she nuzzled into his neck. “How long have we been driving?”

He looked over her shoulder at the clock display over the bar and laughed in disbelief. “About five minutes.”

She joined in his laughter, pushing back so she could look him in the eyes. “Faith was right. I’ll have to tell her later.” The motion made him slide deliciously within her; he was already half-erect. She gave a little swirl of her hips, just because.

Spike gazed up at her, expression somewhere between lazy amusement and awe, sliding one hand around her bare behind under her skirt. “Good thing you wore a skirt. Might have been six minutes if you’d been in trousers.” His hand glided over her hip and around to the front, toying almost absently with her clit.

“That’s why I wore it.” She tilted her hips so give his clever fingers better access. “Along with the sacrificial panties.” She’d felt shivery the whole long trip, every time she thought about it, spent half her trip in a daydream imagining all the places it might happen -- in the restaurant bathroom, out in the alley afterwards, in the hotel elevator. All the places they could steal a few minutes of privacy. She hadn’t pictured a limo, but it definitely fit the bill.

“Planned this, did you?”

She nodded, feeling radiant. “Since I got my ticket.” She grinned at him. “I even pre-stressed the panties. A few strategic snips…”

Spike’s expression shifted from lazy to wicked, and his thumb started to strum roughly on her clit. “Here, love. Come for me again.”

“Okay,” she sighed, and pulsed her hips into his fingers, reveling in the feel of him growing and swelling to full arousal inside her as he stroked and pinched and flicked until she came apart around him.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he sighed, and kissed her, lifting her relaxed body and moving her until she was lying on her back along the long leather couch, shedding his duster along the way; she slid her hands up under his soft long-sleeved shirt, caressing his stomach and chest. When he had her arranged to his satisfaction, he hooked a hand under one knee, pressing it up as he pumped slowly in and out of her. “Can’t wait to taste this.” He stroked his free hand just where they were joined.

Buffy watched him above her and trailed her fingertips across her lips, kicking her heel at his back. “Could taste it now.”

He shook his head, grinning. “Don’t want to rush, pet. Want to take my time worshiping your delectable cunt like it deserves. Don’t have near enough time for that.” He adjusted her leg, shifting the angle of his thrusts. “How’s that feel, then?”

Buffy’s eyes rolled back in her head. “Good. God. That’s really, really good.”

He kissed the inside of her knee. “Understand the root causes of the Trojan War, do we?”

She gasped out a laugh. “Ask me later. Fuck me now.”

He did, whispering incoherent words of love fervently into her leg and then her throat, and then when she’d sighed into an expansive orgasm he disengaged and rolled her on her stomach, solicitously pulling up her shirt and undoing her bra so her bare nipples were pressed against the leather. He plied her with deep, urgent thrusts, half-kneeling as he held tight to her hips, until she was frantic with need, begging him for more, and when she was finally boneless with release on the couch, he heaved her up to sitting again, facing away on his lap as he thrust up into her, hard and sharp, his hands on her breasts, until she felt him spend inside her. They ended up spooned on the couch, hands tenderly caressing faces and thighs and arms as they rested.

Not long after, the intercom dinged. “We’ll be arriving at the hotel in five minutes,” George said blandly.

“He’s good,” Spike laughed. “No bloody way he doesn’t know we’ve been shagging like tigers back here, but you’d never tell from his voice.”

Buffy pushed herself to sitting. “We should clean up.”

Spike rolled his eyes, but when Buffy located the discreetly-hidden container of disinfecting wipes, he amiably helped her wipe down the surfaces they’d fucked on, and yanked out a handful of tissues for their dripping bodies, and by the time five minutes had passed they were once again clothed and the limo was passably clean.

“They’re still going to scrub it,” Spike noted as they settled back into the bench seat.

“Yes, but we did our part to make that as non-traumatic for the cleaning crew as possible.” Buffy said virtuously. “I wouldn’t want the detailers to need therapy.”

“I suppose,” Spike shrugged, and then knuckled her chin up for a kiss. 

“How do I look?” Buffy stroked anxiously at her hair, still kissing Spike. 

“Like you’ve just been thoroughly fucked in a limo,” Spike replied smugly, his lips brushing hers as he spoke.

“Oh.” After a moment of worry, she shrugged. “Well, we’ve got the honeymoon suite. I guess it’s nothing they haven’t seen before. Right?” Having come to terms with her dishevelment, she got back to the very important business of kissing Spike. They had years of kisses to catch up on, after all.

He wrapped his arms around her, lips traveling across her cheek. “Believe we’ve answered your question, though.”

“Mmm?” She kissed his chin.

“We are bloody well still compatible.”

Buffy laughed softly, her worries seeming distant and a bit silly now. “Yeah. I’d say definitely so.”

He kissed her temple gently. “Looking forward to proving that a few thousand more times.”

“That’s all? I plan on living a long time.”

“That’s for this visit, love.” That was delivered with an arrogant grin that dared her to challenge his math.

Like she was actually going to have enough brain to count. “Okay, that’ll work.” The limo eased into a slow curve that had to be the hotel’s drive; as it eased to a stop, Buffy kissed Spike one last time, long and slow and full of promise. “I’m so glad you like my plan for the evening,” she murmured.

“What’s not to like? It sounds very romantic indeed.”

The intercom buzzed. “We’ve arrived at the hotel.”

Buffy pushed the intercom button. “Thank you!” she said brightly. “We’re dece-- um, we’re ready.” 

A few moments later, the door to their compartment slid open, and George beckoned, inviting them to disembark. “Would you like me to take care of your luggage?”

“Oh, no,” Buffy said as he handed her out. “It’s just the one bag, and it has wheels.”

“One carry-on bag for the week?” Spike murmured as he joined her on the sidewalk after shaking George’s hand.

She leaned in close to whisper in his ear. “I figured we’d be naked most of it.”

He grinned, eyes soft and joyful. “Have I mentioned lately that you’re brilliant?”

“You can mention it again. I don’t mind.” 

They checked in at the counter -- Faith had already gotten the keycard and paid, but they still had to sign some papers -- and got directions to the elevator that led to the Special Reserve floor, way at the top of the high-rise. They had to use their keycard to get in.

“Private express elevator,” Spike murmured. “Very posh.” He backed her up against the elevator wall and kissed her as it started to ascend.

Buffy kissed back, then suddenly wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much!”

He embraced her back. “Likewise,” he rumbled.

“We can do this, right? We can be together?” Buffy pulled back to look Spike in the eyes. “I mean, I know we still have work to do. We’re going to have to work hard all along to keep this going. Can we do that?”

He clasped his hands at the small of her back. “‘Course we can.”

Buffy reached up to stroke some curls that had come loose back from his forehead. “I don’t want things to be… unequal between us. I don’t want you to have to… to kowtow to me, and I don’t want to be… abject.”

Spike’s eyes flared. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

“I do, and you know it. And I’m going to, and I’m going to make it up to you. And I’m also going to insist you apologize, properly, for all the shit you’ve pulled. But I’m going to do it as your equal, because that’s the only way we can move forward.” She tilted up and kissed him, hard, like a vow.

“And that’s what you want?” Spike asked, sounding suddenly vulnerable. “To move forward?”

“Yeah. But only if you’re there with me.” She hugged him again. “I want you to be my left-hand-man, I want to have your back, I want us to really be a team.”

“We always did make a good team,” he said softly, pulling her a little closer. “From that very first truce.”

Buffy snorted. “God, I hated you. You were such an ass. You and your Happy-Meals-with-legs.”

“Evil,” he shrugged smugly. “You thought I was sexy, though. Could tell.”

“Oh, yes, you were a very sexy pain in my behind.” Buffy rolled her eyes. 

“You were bloody adorable, in your wee little cap, trying to look tough.”

“I  _ was  _ tough,” she laughed.

“And so you were. But you never looked it, not then.” He kissed her forehead. “I think that was when it happened.”

“When what happened?”

“When I fell in love.” He kissed her deeply then, hands coming up to frame her face. “Took me a while to figure it out, is all. You know I’m not clever.”

“I don’t know when I fell,” Buffy said shyly. “I just know that one day I turned around, and there you were, all settled in to my heart. Putting your boots up on the coffee table. Making yourself at home.” She hugged him again. “Like you belonged. And you totally, totally do.” He groaned happily and held her tight.

The elevator dinged and they reluctantly let go and stepped out..

The hall was empty, though they’d been advised there were multiple suites on the floor; this was probably for the best, Buffy thought dreamily as she and Spike kissed and fondled their way to their suite, stopping halfway for some full-fledged frottage. But they finally made it, Buffy keying the door open with trembling fingers.

Inside was a sleek and elegant open sitting room, burnished dark furniture and lush fabrics, with windows with views in two directions. A plush sofa faced a huge flat-screen TV and a snug kitchenette opened out to an intimate dining area that looked out on the city with the lake beyond.  A wide archway revealed a bedroom, the huge king-sized bed made up with a lush satin bedspread and white cotton sheets, curtains over what was likely a huge picture window. On a side table rested several baskets and floral arrangements with cards and an ice bucket with a chilled bottle. A cooler sat on the floor beside the table.

“Ooh, prezzies,” Buffy laughed, leaving her bag by the door. She bent down and peeked inside the cooler. “Also plenty of blood, looks like. Is otter the latest trend in bagging it?” She closed the cooler securely. “Want to open our Christmas presents?”

“Got all the present I want right here,” Spike growled, setting his hands on her hips.

She smiled, straightening. “We can open the cards later,” she agreed coyly. “But I want champagne now. We’re celebrating.”

Spike kissed the nape of her neck and moved past her, taking the champagne out of the bucket. He whistled at the label. “Slayer, I think you pay your girls too much, if they can afford this. This is Champagne with a capital C.”

“A, the Watchers’ Council can afford it without even dipping into capital, and B, high-risk job equals high pay.” Buffy looked more closely at the flutes as she picked them up. “Ooh, engraved. Looks custom.” She held them up so Spike could see the engraved heart, pierced by a stake.

“Brilliant.” With a practiced twist, Spike popped the cork, swiftly pouring the fizzing wine into the flutes; Buffy giggled as they filled up, handing one to Spike when he tucked the bottle back into the bucket.

Buffy held her glass up. “So what do we toast to?”

“Should have fancy poetic words for the occasion,” Spike shrugged. “But right now all I can think of is…”

She rolled her eyes. “Me too. But I’ve got one anyhow. To us. Merry Christmas.”

His eyes glowed. “Happy Christmas.”

They clinked and drank.

“All right,” Spike said, setting his flute down. “Cross the toast off the agenda. What was next?” He grinned wolfishly. “Oh, yeah.” He started backing Buffy into the bedroom.

“Wait, I’m not done--” 

Spike took the ice bucket by the handle. “Bring it with,” he growled.

Buffy snagged his empty flute, just in case, sipping her bubbly and giggling as Spike kissed her and maneuvered her back to the bed, setting the ice bucket on the bedside table. She set the empty flutes beside it, shaking as she turned back to Spike. He was just looking at her, his face almost confused, like he didn’t remember how they’d got there.

“Go ahead,” she said softly, taking a step towards him. “Unwrap your present.”

He brushed his knuckles across her cheek, tenderly, and her eyes drifted closed at the sensation, the sheer adoration in his touch, and his lips touched hers just as sweetly, and then he ran his hands along her body, slowly, while she stroked his clothed chest, and it didn’t matter that just a little while ago they’d been half-naked and intertwined and covered in bodily fluids; it still felt like the first time they’d ever touched, like everything was clean and new.

“I love you,” she said, suddenly realizing that they hadn’t said it yet, not face to face. 

His eyes closed for a moment before refocusing on her face, full of wonder. “I love you, too,” he said simply, and kissed her again.

“I forgot my speech,” Buffy said with a soft laugh, sliding her hands under the lapels of his duster. “It was really good, too. There were grand metaphors and stuff.” She pushed his duster off, sliding it down his arms and to the ground. “Maybe it was a little long.”

“Mine had poetry,” Spike murmured, helping her slip her jacket off. “Not by me, so it wasn’t awful. Bugger if I can remember a word.” 

“Later on we’ll have to dig out our notes. We can take turns reading them.” She stroked his chest through his shirt again. “This is nice and soft. Green is a good color for you.”

“Silk and cotton.” He kissed the top of her head, caressing her throat. “Bought it for you. I wanted to be touchable.”

“Mmm.” She stroked his chest again, then grasped the shirt’s hem. “You can wear it again for me later. You’re touchable without it, too.”

His laugh was muffled by the fabric as she tugged the shirt over his head and off his arms. “I’ll have to fetch my silk jim-jams from HQ later on. They’re even more touchable.”

“There’s a suitcase over there,” Buffy pointed out, tossing the shirt aside and running her hands over the planes of his chest. “Maybe someone packed them for you already?”

Spike craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “Bloody Faith. Must have ransacked my room while I was asleep.”

“Looks like there’s a note to add to our read-later pile.” Buffy kept exploring his body, tracing his ribs and the lines of his abs, enjoying the way he quivered at her touch. “This scar is new.” She was suddenly glad they’d gone off-script earlier in the limo, taking the edge off their lust; they’d never had this, the chance to leisurely explore each other, the breathing room to take their time.

“The Polgara demon last month.” He caught up her hand from his stomach, her left hand, holding it where he could watch as he traced the slightly puckered skin. “I noticed this at the restaurant.”

She smiled softly, spreading out her fingers and lacing them with his. His fingers fit neatly into the scars, like puzzle pieces. “Fun fact: fire burns.”

He looked at their clasped hands in determined confusion, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know the right language.

She tightened her fingers, taking pity on him. “Got some other scars you might be interested in, too,” she whispered huskily. “Take off my shirt.”

His eyes narrowed. “You got hurt?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, it happens regularly, but no, I just want you to take off my shirt instead of thinking about Sunnydale. That’s our history, and it’s always going to be part of us, and we can talk about it later -- possibly in that hot tub over there -- but right now I want to enjoy  _ now. _ ” She kissed his knuckles, one by one, and released his hand. “I was trying to be subtle, but subtle time is over. Take off my shirt.”

He laughed and briskly relieved her of her shirt, sliding his arms around her back to unclasp her bra. “Let me guess. I’m supposed to find the new scars somewhere on your body.”

She nodded, shrugging her shoulders out of the straps. “You’ll have to search very thoroughly.”

He dropped the bra, spreading his fingers out to trace cool arcs around the curve of her breast. “Can be extremely bloody thorough.”

She arched into his touch as he brushed his thumbs over her nipples. “I want you to touch every inch of me. Every inch of me missed you.”

He slid his hands down to her waistband, unclipping her skirt. “I missed every inch of you.” As her skirt fell to the floor, he took a step back, eyes devouring her naked body from head to toe. “Every sodding glorious inch.” He fell to his knees and started to unzip her boots.

She set her hands on his shoulders for balance as he helped her out of her boots and socks. “Even my crooked pinky toe?” she asked coyly. She’d broken it kicking a rock-hard something-or-other demon in the face and it hadn’t healed quite right.

He lifted her foot and sucked lightly on the toe in question, sending shivers along her skin. “Even your adorable, crooked pinky toe.” He set her foot down reverently and stood, running his hands lightly up the outside of her legs and arms.

Buffy stepped closer and unbuckled Spike’s belt, pressing kisses randomly on his chest as she slid her hands in to cup his ass. “Didn’t get to do this earlier. Mmm nice.”

He helped her shove his jeans down, sitting on the edge of the bed as she knelt and untied his boots, slipping them off and setting them neatly aside before tugging his jeans the rest of the way off. 

“There,” she said in satisfaction when he was as bare as she, standing and moving in so she was right between his knees. She looked down at him and ran her fingers through his hair, teasing out more curls. “Did you want more champagne?”

He grinned. “Perhaps in a bit.” He curved his hands around her thighs. “So, General Buffy, did you have any particular plans.”

She flushed. “Well, my main plan already got taken care of. Um, with the panties-ripping. So I thought maybe it was your turn to… plan.” She kissed his forehead gently. “Was there something you wanted to do first?”

“As a matter of fact, there is. Here, let’s top off your glass.” Spike reached out and snagged the bottle and Buffy’s flute, filling it with foaming champagne; as she sipped and watched, he set the bottle up on a shelf just above the headboard and stripped back the covers halfway. “Come join me.” He settled in the middle of the bed, holding out his arms.

She laughed and crawled in beside him, careful not to spill her drink. “Your grand plan is to snuggle?” She tried not to sound disappointed, because snuggles were an awesome thing, but the slow burn he’d started in her belly was threatening to boil over now. Leisurely time was over as far as her hormones were concerned.

“It’s a start.” He stroked her hair gently as he kissed her, then took her flute and set it up beside the bottle. “Now, do you trust me?”

She didn’t even hesitate before nodding. “Yes.”

He grinned wickedly. “All right then. Up on your knees. Hold on to the headboard.”

Buffy shivered in anticipation, turning until her knees were sinking into the soft pillows and she was looking at the shelf, which she could now see held a box of chocolates as well as the champagne. Spike rose up behind her, his knees wedging between hers to spread them wide. His hands slid along her ribcage to fondle her breasts.

“Was drowning in you for years,” he murmured softly, lips and blunt teeth grazing her throat and tracing her ear. “Long before either of us knew it. Was a funny thing, being apart so long. I wasn’t drowning any more, had plenty of space to breathe, and even so all I could think of was how I wanted to go down yet again. 

Buffy shuddered as he caressed her, fingers clutching at the headboard. “Vampires don’t need to breathe,” she managed to tease. His chest was cool and smooth against her back; she could feel his erect cock hard against her ass. 

He slid one hand across her belly, down through her curls to stroke at her clit. “Want to drown in you again, love. Want to worship you like you deserve, treat you like the bloody warrior queen you are.

“Please,” Buffy moaned, her breath starting to hitch. She didn’t know what he planned, whether he wanted to take her from behind, or clap her in handcuffs, or just keep on teasing her until she was ready to explode, but she wanted to surrender to him right now, to this man she’d always clashed with one way or another, to open herself to him as she never had before. “Please!”

He chuckled, and then his hands and his chest were gone, the mattress shifting and swaying with his movement, and just as Buffy was about to look over her shoulder to see what he was doing, she felt his hands on the outside of her knees, and she looked down to see his head poking out between her legs, and he ducked his head up to press the lightest of kisses right at her center, and she let out a choked gasp as pleasure shot through her.

“There, love,” he crooned, his tongue darting out to flick at her folds. “Drink your champagne and let me drown myself in you.” He licked her then, his strong tongue sweeping all along her, again, and again, and she moaned, tilting her hips into the strokes.

As if in a trance, she reached out and took up her champagne flute, taking gasping sips as Spike relentlessly sucked and licked and nibbled at her, driving her up to a sharp crescendo that made her shriek; she barely managed to avoid snapping the fragile glass. It wasn’t like Spike had never gone down on her -- it had been his favorite thing, she knew, devouring her nethers until she was screaming with pleasure -- but she’d never just let herself enjoy it, back then; she’d always fought and wrestled and cursed, demanding ecstasy even as she rejected it. Now… now she was open and pliant and unashamed, and oh god she was coming again already and also losing her capacity to think, and she ground her pussy into Spike’s tongue, thighs burning, feeling her own wetness flowing over him as she spent. In the vague lassitude that followed -- he was still licking her, but he’d slowed for a bit, his eyes flaring as he watched her come -- she reached out and poured herself more champagne, popping one of the chocolates in her mouth for good measure.  _ It’s good to be the queen, _ she thought dreamily.

“Here, give us some of that, love,”

Buffy glanced downwards in surprise. “The champagne? Um, how--” She vaguely gestured downwards with her own flute, the logistics of getting the flute to his mouth taxing her kinda-exploded brain.

“Don’t need a glass,” he said, grinning up the length of her body. “Can drink it off of you.”

Buffy shuddered as she got what he meant, letting go of the headboard and leaning back, planting her free hand on his chest for support as she tipped her flute over onto her belly. She squeaked as the cold rivulets of sparkling wine trickled down her body. Spike’s eyes rolled back in his head as he lapped at the trickles, sipping the wine from her, and then when the wine was gone he redoubled his pleasurable assault, hard and intense, rhythmically fucking her with his tongue, thrusting it into her over and over again, now and again sweeping long lavish strokes up to her clit. 

She arched her back, managing to get the flute back to the shelf before she gave herself over to pleasure, chanting Spike’s name as she came again, and again, and then she was done with surrendering, she needed to act, and so she wriggled and turned until she was facing down his body, still grinding desperately into his tongue’s action, except now she could see his swollen cock bobbing desperately erect, and she lunged and sucked him into her mouth, sighing with relief as he swore into her pussy, tongue frantic, and oh god, he tasted good, better than she remembered, and then she came again on his tongue and she channeled her ecstasy into her mouth, sucking and licking and bobbing until his hips were bucking off the bed, and then she slid forward, crawling towards his feet, and he got the picture right away, rolling up to follow her until he was sliding into her from behind, easy as a stake to the heart, and he fucked her at a leisurely pace, in and out, in and out, maddeningly slow, stroking her back and her breasts and her thighs, until she turned half on her side and reached up her arms and he fell into them, his wet face rubbing into her breasts as she wrapped her legs around him, and then they were face to face, gazing into each other’s eyes as they strove together.

“I love you,” he said softly, kissing her nose.

“I love you,” she replied, beaming, and then she was coming again, like a miracle, his name on her lips, and he paused to watch her face until she was coming down, and then she held him close as he worked to his own release, savoring the feel of him jerking and throbbing inside her.

“Come on,” she whispered when his body had relaxed again and she thought maybe she could move. “Let’s take a bath.”

He refilled their flutes as she stumbled off the bed. “Did you want to read the notes, love?” He headed into the bathroom.

“Not in the hot tub, I don’t.” Her legs were definitely on the shaky side; she laughed as she staggered in a quick circuit of the suite, plucking cards from the various baskets and giving them a quick scan. “We’ve got fruit from Giles, Willow, and Xander. Andrew sent the basket of French chocolates -- the note is in French, I think, too. He really has gone native. The flowers are from the London slayers, and there’s a card from the Cleveland crowd, I think? Lots of signatures, and I recognize Vi’s. Did everyone know we were staying here? The note on the suitcase is from Faith.” Buffy snorted. “She really has a way with words. I think your silk jammies are definitely in there, if that’s what she means by ‘gigolo pants.’” 

Spike’s voice came from the bathroom. “Kewpie doll for the lady.”

“Awesome.”  Those silk pajamas had figured in a thousand different fantasies since she’d first learned they existed.

Buffy set the notes on the bedside table and followed Spike into the bathroom. He was just lighting the last of the candles that were set out around the room, the flickering lights reflecting off polished marble and gleaming brass; the tub was already bubbling, steam wafting over the surface. It was set near yet another window looking out over the city; the moon was far overhead now, almost full, scattered clouds gleaming in its pale light

He set his lighter aside and handed her into the tub, following her with a sigh of pleasure. He scooped up the flutes between his fingers, turning one over to her for another clink.

“So,” he whispered smugly. “Do I know how to show my girl a good time?”

Buffy raised her eyebrows teasingly. “At the restaurant Faith chose, in the limo Faith secured, and at the hotel Faith paid an arm and a leg for, with champagne and goodies provided by our friends?” She relented, snuggling in. “Yeah. You totally do.”

“You’d prefer the La Quinta Inn?” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, tossing his own champagne back in one gulp.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting any of this.” She gestured at the marble and brass and candles. “I figured we’d have dinner, and then have sex in my ordinary hotel room, and then maybe go kill evil things together. I didn’t think there would be gift baskets and views and luxury.” She elbowed him teasingly. “I did figure there would be candles, though. You always did love candlelight.”

“Part of the vampire idiom,” he shrugged. “Not that I’m much for tradition, but that one stuck. As for the rest, I think we’re being sent a message, love.” Spike kissed the top of her head, fingers curling up to gently massage her scalp. “Every bloody person we work with wants us to know that we have their stamp of approval.”

“I don’t need it,” she said softly. “Not anymore. I’d choose you even if nobody approved and we had to run away to Siberia to be together. Herd reindeer or something.” She frowned. “Do they live in igloos in Siberia?”

“Unlikely.” Spike kissed her again. “But don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of the ordinary life ahead of us. Think you can handle sharing company housing with a fellow like me? We can live simply. Order pizza and Chinese and clip coupons. Drink stuff off the bottom shelf.” He kissed her shoulder. “Sing coal-miner songs about our sorry lot in life.”

“Well, I have no strong objections to champagne, occasionally. This is way better than what we had last New Years.” She took another sip. “But the rest.... Um, we hadn’t actually talked about any of that.” She rubbed her cheek into his shoulder. “Are you asking me to move in with you? Here in Cleveland?”

“Was thinking London,” Spike said softly. “You’re the one with the rank and position and financial meetings. Think your training program there could use a vampire on staff?”

“Maybe. Okay, definitely.” She traced circles on his chest. “Faith’s going to give me hell for stealing her best trainer, though.”

“She already knows. Told her I’d come back once in a while for seminars or some such.”

“And it’s what you want?”

“It’s what I want.” He stroked a hand along her body. “Don’t have to live together, if you’d rather wait on that. Can have my own flat. But I want to come to London.”

“I want you to come to London, too. I’ve been afraid to ask.”

“No pressure?”

She nodded. “I wanted you to choose me on your own.”

“I chose you ages ago, my one girl in all the world,” he murmured. “Was convincing myself I could have you that was the real problem. Had it in my head you were too far above me.”

“I’d rather be beside you.” She looked up at him, eyes serious. “Please come to London.”

“No place in the world I’d rather be.” He kissed her then, deep and languid and cool.

Buffy sighed into his embrace, feeling suddenly at peace. “So, about tonight. Did you want to watch a movie?”

“We could,” he said noncommittally, settling her more comfortably against him. “I do enjoy the telly.  _ It’s a Wonderful Life _ is certain to be on one of the hundred channels _. _ ”

“Or we could just talk.” Buffy stretched her foot up out of the foaming water, wiggling her toes.

“Yeah. Though we’ve got all the time in the world for that, now.” 

Buffy gazed out at the Cleveland skyline. “Do you think the girls are out tonight?”

“Most likely. You know Christmas is a busy night for the forces of evil, usually the poseur ones who feel they’ve got something to prove. Bloody idiots.” He leaned down to kiss her ear. “But it’s a day of power, Christmas, so you know how that goes. Full moon’s the twenty-sixth as well, so they’ll also be keeping an eye out for premature werewolves, try to get them contained.”

“Hmm. Sounds busy. I hope they’re all okay.”

They snuggled for a bit longer, until Buffy had finished her champagne; Spike took the flute from her and set it aside, fingers tipping up her head for a sweet kiss.

“Good thing we don’t have to go fight the forces of evil tonight,” he said.

“Uh-huh,” Buffy agreed, rubbing her nose against his. “Three whole days off is just what we needed.”

“Been going nonstop for weeks,” he sighed. “Bloody brilliant to take a break from it all.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Buffy kissed his bare shoulder, stretching. “Nothing to do but lounge, eat, and make love.”

“This delightful jacuzzi….”

“Strawberries and chocolates....”

“We can stay up all night watching the telly and sleep as late as we like,” Spike pointed out.

“Room service,” Buffy sighed blissfully.

“Fine wine.”

“Nothing but rest and relaxation for three whole days.”

Spike ducked down to kiss her yet again, lips cool and firm and perfect, and she kissed him back lazily, until he drew back, looking at her like she was a miracle.

And then he grinned, jerking his head towards the door. “Want to go kill evil things together?” 

Buffy wrapped her arms around him in relief. “I thought you’d never ask.”

THE END


End file.
